High Translation Costs Cause BlackBerry to Pull Out of Japan

 

High Translation Costs Cause BlackBerry to Pull Out of Japan

With the latest BlackBerry device, the Z10, breaking records in the United Kingdom and Canada, the company has announced they will stop selling in Japan due to high translation costs.

BlackBerry announced they can’t justify launching in Japan due to the cost of translating it’s newest operating system into Japanese. If Japanese citizens want to use BlackBerry phones, they will have to use the former operating system, BlackBerry 7 OS.

A BlackBerry spokesperson offered this statement, “BlackBerry enjoys a constructive relationship with trusted partner, NTT DOCOMO, and we will continue to support the carrier’s ongoing BlackBerry sales in Japan. We have not announced plans to launch BlackBerry 10 in Japan, but this does not affect our key priorities in the market: to continue to provide BlackBerry service and robust support to BlackBerry’s Japanese customers, both consumers and business users.”  

Meanwhile, the company’s sales have been quite successful in Canada. BlackBerry CEO, Thorsten Heins said, “In Canada, yesterday was the best day ever for the first day of a launch of a new BlackBerry smartphone. In fact, it was more than 50 percent better than any other launch day in our history in Canada.”