The New BlackBerry Hits the Tape

One of the side benefits of changing both your name and your ticker symbol is that it is like getting a fresh start on stock price ranges. BlackBerry (NASDAQ: BBRY), the new name for what used to be Research In Motion, went live today with a new ticker symbol and the stock's new 52-week high is $14.45, compared with last Friday's high of $18.32.

BlackBerry's shares opened at $13.03 this morning and are up more than 10% on no news. Investors cannot seem to decide whether the new BlackBerry phones will be winners or losers once they hit the U.S. market in mid-March.

Early reports from the United Kingdom, where the new phones were available beginning last Thursday, indicated that the touch-screen Z10 is nearly sold out. One analyst said that BlackBerry had provided "at least several hundred thousand units" for sale in the U.K.

For comparison, the iPhone 5 sold more than 5 million units in the United States in its first weekend. The U.S. market is about five times larger than the U.K. market, which means that first weekend sales are going pretty well for BlackBerry.

The Z10 goes on sale tomorrow in Canada and China, with Middle Eastern markets scheduled to receive the new phones next week.

Filed under: 24/7 Wall St. Wire, Consumer Electronics, Telecom & Wireless Tagged: AAPL, BBRY, featured