US BlackBerry Upgrade Offer Sees 94 Percent Jump Ship

A leaked memo suggests that 94 percent of all T-Mobile USA BlackBerry users took advantage of an offer to trade-in their handset for a newer model and ditched the Canadian manufacturer in favour of another platform.

The US operator witnessed 15 times the normal amount of BlackBerry trade-ins following the promotion, which offered $200 credit to be used against a new handset, and a source told TMOnews that it had been “very successful.”

The initial offer encouraged BlackBerry users to trade-in their phones for a free upgrade to iPhone 5S, a move which incensed BlackBerry CEO John Chen, and apparently, die-hard BlackBerry users.

BlackBerry loyalty

T-Mobile responded by offering users an additional $50 for anyone who chose to trade-in for a newer BlackBerry handset, such as the Z10 or Q10, but this was not enough to encourage customers to remain loyal.

No specific figures have been revealed by T-Mobile, but it is slightly embarrassing for BlackBerry and suggests that long-time users of its products are unconvinced by its newer models. At the time, Chen said it was heartened that BlackBerry fans were dismayed by T-Mobile’s offer and called the promotion ill-conceived and misjudged.

“T-Mobile could not have been more wrong,” he said last month. “I want to thank our loyal customers for your commitment to BlackBerry. By expressing your outrage directly to T-Mobile ‎through tweets, calls and comments in the media and on blog posts, you sent a powerful message that T-Mobile could not ignore. Your partnership with our brand is appreciated by all of us at BlackBerry, and draws a sharp contrast with the behaviour of our long time business partner.”

Last week at Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, BlackBerry unveiled two new smartphones, the Z3 and the Q20, and announced major updates to its BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) mobile management platform and a new version of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) for enterprises.

Is this the beginning of a new dawn for BlackBerry in 2014? Try our 2013 BlackBerry quiz!