US telcos discounting BlackBerry Z10 up to 75pc as sales dry up

The BlackBerry Z10. BlackBerry's fortunes have faded as consumers switch to iPhones and Andriod operating systems. Photo: Reuters.

US telcos have slashed the price of the new BlackBerry Z10 by 75 per cent, offering the four-month old handset for as little as $US49 ($54) on a two-year contract.

The Wall Street Journal reports that major US carriers AT&T and Verizon have cut the price of a BlackBerry on a two-year contract from $US199 ($219) to $US99, while BestBuy and Amazon are now offering it for as little as $US49 with a contract.

In Australia, Telstra sells BlackBerry Z10 plans from $67 per month on a two-year contract, while Optus offers the handsets from $55 per month for a contract of the same length.

The BlackBerry10 operating system powering the devices was announced in January. This year's products have been taken by many analysts as a last throw of the dice by the Canadian company once known as Research in Motion, whose phones were once synonymous with the then-new service of mobile email.

BlackBerry's fortunes have faded as consumers switched first to Apple's iPhone and more recently to handsets from makers such as Samsung, which the use Andriod operating system made by Google.

But signs of a revival have not been promising.

According to figures from Gartner, BlackBerry held a 3 per cent share of the smartphone operating system market in the first quarter of 2013, compared to 18.2 per cent for Apple's iOS and a huge 74.4 per cent for Google's Android.

Earlier in July, shares in BlackBerry tumbled by more than 30 per cent after the company released first quarter results that missed analyst expectations, with a net loss of $US84 million. Sales of the Z10 and BlackBerry's other new Q10 handset were also short of expectations, with combined handset sales of 6.8 million units for the quarter.

Even in the UK, where the Blackberry had continued to be relatively popular, the handset maker's share of the smartphone operating system market has fallen from 13.5 per cent in 2012 to 5.6 per cent, according to figures quoted by the Inquirer.

Unlike Apple and surging rival Samsung, RIM was also unable to branch out into the market for tablet devices, with its PlayBook meeting little interest among consumers. In 2011 poor PlayBook sales prompted a $US500 million writedown due to unsold inventory. BlackBerry sold just 100,000 PlayBook tablets in the first quarter of its 2013-14 year.