BlackBerry Z10 out of stock post price slash

The company has announced a limited period offer to sell Z10 for Rs 17,990

BlackBerry has run out of stock of its touchscreen smartphone Z10 in India in about a week's time after it slashed the handset's price by about 60 % to Rs 17,990 in two steps from its launch price of Rs 43,490.

"We have seen great response to the commemorative offer for BlackBerry Z10 and it is true that we have been stocked out," Blackberry spokesperson said in response to PTI's e-mail query.

BlackBerry had launched Z10 about a year ago for Rs 43,990. The price of the handset was dropped by company under a special offer to Rs 29,990 in September, 2013. On February 25 this year, the company further announced a limited period offer to sell Z10 for Rs 17,990.

"We are looking at bringing fresh stocks in the next few days, so as to ensure that more and more users are able to enjoy the cutting edge experience of a full-touch device combined with a revolutionary operating system," the spokesperson said.

The smartphone maker suffered a huge loss of $ 4.4 billion in its third quarter ended November 30, mainly due to unsold handsets.

In December, the company decided to reduce it handset inventory by offering incentives on their sales, especially on devices built on its latest platform BlackBerry 10.

BlackBerry recorded a primarily non-cash, pre-tax charge against inventory and supply commitments of approximately $ 1.6 billion in the third quarter of fiscal 2014 and this charge was primarily attributable to its BlackBerry 10 devices.

During the third quarter, BlackBerry sold approximately 4.3 million smartphones to end customers. Of the total smartphones sold, approximately 3.2 million were BlackBerry 7 devices which include models like BlackBerry Curve, Bold, Torch, etc.

Research firm IDC said: "BlackBerry was the only operating system to realise negative year-over-year change of 77 % both for the quarter and for the year (2013) (-40.9 %)".

In a random check, Z10 was found available on e-commerce sites, Flipkart and Snapdeal but for about 22-50 % higher price compared to maximum retail price of Rs 17,990 announced by company. The handset was out of stock at HomeShop18 but selling price at this portal was also about 50 % high compared to Rs 17,990.

"Given that Flipkart is an online marketplace, the prices of products on the site are decided by the seller and not Flipkart," a Flipkart spokesperson said explaining the reason behind higher prices.