New BlackBerry Q10 lands in Toronto first

BlackBerry users hoping to get their hands on the latest version of the keyboard smartphone will have to wait a couple more daysif they live outside of Toronto.

The company (TSX:BB) says the release of the BlackBerry Q10 will begin first in the Greater Toronto Area on Wednesday, before it expands to the rest of Canada later in the week.

"The demand in Toronto is very, very strong, and we want to make sure we have enough supply," chief operating officer Kristian Tear told The Canadian Press.

• Pete Nowak's review of the Q10

"We start off by selling it in the Greater Toronto Area, then we expand the coverage and bring BlackBerry Q10 to all Canadians who are waiting for it throughout the country over the next couple of days."

The keyboard version of the smartphone is expected to be popular with business users, especially with bankers and traders on Bay Street. Many of those phones are purchased by businesses, or enterprise customers, who buy the devices in bulk for their employees.

The speed of the rollout for the BlackBerry Q10 phone in key markets around the world is about three times faster than the launch of the touchscreen model earlier this year, Tear said.

BlackBerry is expected to release the phone in the crucial U.S. market next month, though a date hasn't been announced.

The Q10 phone arrived in the U.K. over the weekend under an exclusive launch at department store Selfridges. The U.K. sales have exceeded the company's expectations, Tear said, though sales figures haven't been released.

Some analysts have recently observed that sales of the BlackBerry Z10 touchscreen phone have started to fall in some markets, and never really took off in the United States where it arrived in stores last month.

Shares of BlackBerry were ahead more than five per cent, or 82 cents, to $16.60 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.