Blackberry passport receives 200, 000 orders

BlackBerry CEO John Chen on Friday confirmed that the
Waterloo-based handset maker received 200,000 orders
for its new Passport smartphone following its launch
earlier this week. The all-new BlackBerry 10 device is
catered towards business users in the enterprise,
featuring a square screen and physical keyboard that
doubles as a touchpad.
First and foremost, let’s get something out of the way:
the BlackBerry Passport is no iPhone. Apple
announced that it received 4 million pre-orders for the
iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus after just 24 hours, and
later confirmed that it had a record-breaking 10 million
iPhone sales during the launch weekend for the two
smartphones.
But, at the same time, it is still respectable that
BlackBerry was able to move 200,000 of their new
Passport smartphone to customers. While it remains to
be seen if BlackBerry will ever rise to be as successful
as it was as an early pioneer of the smartphone
industry, that sales figure proves that BlackBerry could
still have a place in the enterprise.
That’s probably the company’s safest best, too, as
their latest attempt to enter the consumer market
arguably failed — big time. The consumer-facing
BlackBerry Z10, with a large touchscreen akin to
several flagship smartphones, was largely a flop and
significantly trailed behind the iPhone, Samsung
Galaxy S5 and other strong competitors.
The company will also release the BlackBerry Classic,
a successor to the Q10, in a few months.
[via Wall Street Journal ]