Zee Media Bureau
BlackBerry Z3, the Canadian company's latest smartphone, has been launched in India on Wednesday carrying a price tag of Rs 15,990.
The Z3 features 1.2 Ghz dual-core processor, 1.5 GB RAM, 8 GB internal memory (expandable upto 32 GB) and 5MP rear camera. The Z3 is the first phone manufactured by Foxconn.
The smartphone will be available for prebooking from today till July 2.
Launched in Indonesia earlier this year, the full touch screen device was priced at IDR 2,199,000 (USD 190 ) and is the most affordable device powered by the latest BlackBerry 10 operating system.
Popular especially among the youth for its Curve range of devices and messaging app BBM, India was a strong market for the Waterloo-based firm. It had a 12.1 percent share of the smartphone market during January-June 2012 period.
However, the firm saw its share fall as devices powered by Google's Android OS and Apple iPhones gained strong traction in the market and despite launching its BlackBerry 10 OS, it has so far failed to re-gain foothold in the market.
Over the last few weeks, handset makers have launched a slew of devices, priced below Rs 12,000 (sub-USD 200) to tap the booming smartphone market in India.
According to International Data Corporation, smartphone sales in India grew almost three-fold to over 44 million in 2013, buoyed by affordable devices made by local firms like Micromax and Karbonn.
In the first quarter of 2014, 17.59 million smartphones were shipped in India compared with 6.14 million in the same period of 2013. Samsung was the market leader (35 percent share) in Q1, followed by Micromax (15 percent), Karbonn (10 percent), LAVA (6 percent) and Nokia (4 percent).
