Nikkei reported recently that BlackBerry decided that they couldn’t justify the projected cost of translating the entire BlackBerry 10 OS into Japanese. This result in a complete pull out of the country and BB10 devices won’t be available for Japanese buyers. The all-touch BlackBerry Z10 has been available in Canada and the United Kingdom.
BlackBerry only has a 0.3 percent market share in Japan and it may spend more money on converting the OS than it would receive from the sales. Things may have ended up differently of the company owns at least 5 percent share in Japanese smartphone market. Fortunately, owners of older BlackBerry devices will continue to receive support from the Canadian company.
NTT DoCoMo started offering BlackBerry handsets in 2006 and it helped the domestic market transition to smartphones. However, things changed immensely since the iPhone and numerous Android devices were released.
