BlackBerry loses big during T-Mobile trade-in promo

(PHOTO: BlackBerry / Press Photo)BlackBerry's BB10 launched during a keynote event in 2013.

BlackBerry was on the losing end during a recent T-Mobile trade-in promo.

For BlackBerry users, the latest offer by T-Mobile seemed successful, but that was not the case for BlackBerry. TMONews reported the trade-in campaign resulted in that 94 percent of traded BB devices were exchanged for smartphones from BB's competitors. It is not clear though as to how many participated in the T-Mobile trade-in promo.

T-Mobile last month offered a $200 trade-in for BB users, thus, the consumers could get a great price on a new iPhone. This created a fuss among fans of BlackBerry, and CEO John Chen called it, "inappropriate and ill-conceived."

T-Mobile tried to fix it by offering $50 extra for those who decided to trade-in an old BB in favor of a new Z10 or Q10 for instance. However, this was still not the catch with the $50 seemingly not making any difference. According to Los Angeles Times, a majority of all BB trade-ins favored other brands.

The offer has now ended and T-Mobile mentioned in an internal memo that the promo resulted in a 15 time rise in BB trade-ins.

BlackBerry cannot afford to lose customers, especially at this time when it is facing some major challenges. Last year, BlackBerry lost $5.4 billion. Its recent OS and line of devices, such as BB10, also did not succeed as planned. Sales of BlackBerry mobile devices is only one percent of the total smartphones shipped in 2013 Q4.

However, CEO John Chen remains positive, ready to turn the company around. He is BlackBerry's third CEO in two years. He plans to focus on enterprise again, which is where BB has been most successful.

Copyright © 2014 Ecumenical News