BlackBerry offering to pay $550 to iPhone owners who switch
BLACKBERRY has taken an unusual step to push its new Passport smartphone into people’s hands, by paying them to swap their iPhone for it.
In the US and Canada, BlackBerry is offering customers up to $550 (£348) to trade any iPhone since 2011 for the business-orientated Passport.
The offer to pay people to take its phones may seem like the actions of a desperate company, but BlackBerry is well along on the recovery trail under new chief executive John Chen.
In September the company reported a dramatic narrowing in its losses from $965m to $207m for the three months ending 30 August.
Under Chen, the mobile phone company has dramatically restructured to remould itself to focus more specifically on the business market.
BlackBerry says that the Passport, which was released in September, was designed specifically to focus on this market and for “productivity-driven business professionals”.