NEW DELHI: Smartphone maker BlackBerry will unveil its new line of BlackBerry 10-powered devices in the country on February 25.
The launch in India follows the global launch of the new operating system and two devices — Z10 and Q10 — powered by the new platform on January 30.
The phones will be introduced at an event in Mumbai, the Canada-based company said in an invitation sent to media.
However, the pricing details of the phone were not available.
The struggling smartphone maker has also re-christened itself as ‘BlackBerry’ from Research in Motion earlier as it looks to turn around its fortunes with the new launch.
The company, which pioneered email on the go, is now undertaking a “journey of transformation of business and brand”.
The two devices — Z10 and Q10 — will compete with Apple’s iPhone and those based on Google’s Android operating system, which have gained popularity across the world.
RIM’s stocks also took a beating, declining close to 72 per cent from over USD 61 apiece in January 2010 to USD 17.54 on January 25, 2012. It had fallen to as low as USD 6.30 in September 2012.
In July-September period of 2012, Android smartphones had a market share of 72.4 per cent, while Apple’s iOS market share stood at 13.9 per cent compared to RIM’s share of 5.3 per cent.
However, BlackBerry has a strong fan following in India, especially among youth. As per CyberMedia Research, RIM’s market share in Indian smartphone market stood at 12.1 per cent during January-June 2012 period.
RIM is betting big on touchscreen with its new User Interface (UI) on Z10 and other features like BlackBerry Balance.
BlackBerry, which faced strong criticism for lack of content on its application store, has also revamped it to take on Android’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store.
BlackBerry, which for long been touted as an enterprise device, has introduced ‘BlackBerry Balance’ that will allow users separate professional data and applications from music, photographs and other personal items. The new devices also feature enhanced camera features.
BlackBerry Z10 was first unveiled in UK, last month, followed by Canada, UAE and USA earlier this month.
