Nearly All T-Mobile BlackBerry Trade-Ins Have Switched to a Competing Platform

The bad news keeps coming in for former smartphone giant BlackBerry. You may recall that T-Mobile has been running a high value trade-in promo, encouraging BlackBerry users to trade-in their old and busted phones for $200 towards a new smartphone. The promotion appears to be going over remarkably well for our favorite magenta obsessed mobile carrier, T-Mobile, with the number of trade-ins increasing 15x over the average amount. But things aren’t going quite so rosy for BlackBerry, as it turns out customers have taken this opportunity to not only buy themselves a new smartphone, but to switch platforms entirely, with an internal T-Mobile memo publicized by Tmonews.com claiming that 94% of all BlackBerry trade-ins have ended up switching to a competing platform despite offering an extra $50 to any customer who upgraded to a new BlackBerry device.

This comes despite T-Mobile offering two of BlackBerry’s latest and greatest smartphones, the BlackBerry Z10 and the BlackBerry Q10. These are thousands of customers that BlackBerry desperately needed to keep as the company goes through the most tumultuous period ever. The current lineup of BlackBerry 10 smartphones, which was originally intended to bridge the gap between modern all-touch smartphones that the iPhone popularized in 2007 and the business-savvy user base BlackBerry has traditionally enjoyed, has certainly not been the hit that the company has expected. Knowing this, BlackBerry has announced an all new lineup of BlackBerry 10 powered smartphones just last week at Mobile World Congress – the budget friendly BlackBerry Z3, and the BlackBerry Q20.

So, I’m curious. Is anyone out there reading this now one of T-Mobile’s new BlackBerry switchers? What do you think of life outside the BlackBerry ecosystem, and what type of smartphone did you decide on as a replacement? Let us know in the comments section below!