BlackBerry Ltd chief executive officer John Chen (程守宗) said it is a good thing that some people cannot buy the new Passport cellphone, because that means it is popular.
Shortages of the business-focused smartphone show that efforts to turn around the unprofitable company, formerly known as Research In Motion Ltd, are taking hold, Chen told an MIT Enterprise Forum event on Friday in Hong Kong.
Demand for the phone — the first major new device released globally since Chen, 59, took charge in November last year — has exceeded the Canadian company’s expectations.
“I’m glad to have inventory issues. It shows that people want the phone,” Chen said. “We took a very conservative approach and didn’t order too many.”
In his attempt to return the company to profitability by 2016, Chen is focusing on products such as the BlackBerry Blend feature, which appeals to corporate customers because it helps them merge work and personal information.
BlackBerry’s smartphone shipments sank to 13.7 million units last year from 52.3 million in 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, as it struggled to compete with touchscreen devices produced by Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co.
The Passport pre-sold 200,000 units in the first two days, selling out in six hours on BlackBerry’s Web site and within 10 hours on Amazon.com Inc’s Web site.
The square-screen smartphone is designed for business users who write e-mails, study spreadsheets and read documents on their phones.
BlackBerry is focused on the 30 percent of the market that sees their phones as a tool, not as an entertainment portal, Chen said.
“That is not a space that we can afford to be in now. Being sexy and being a workhorse are two different things,” he said.
Chen, a Hong Kong native, said he does not yet have a strategy for expanding into China.
The company got 16 percent of its sales from the Asia-Pacific region during the fiscal year that ended in March, compared with 19 percent from the US, according to the data.
Chen said he hopes to get ideas when he attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Beijing next month, his first trip to China as chief executive officer.
“China is too big a market to ignore,” Chen said. “It is clear that BlackBerry needs to and should be in that market.”
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