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BlackBerry announces surprise quarterly profit

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Sharath Kumar
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The Z10 smartphone seems turning point for BlackBerry. The Canadian handset manufacturer on Thursday announced a surprising profit in its most recent quarter indicating that initial sales of its newest phone were strong.

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BlackBerry loyalists snapped up 1 million Z10 smartphones during the fiscal quarter ended March 2 - matching modest sales expectations.

And the company earned a small profit, $98 million, during its fiscal fourth quarter, the first quarterly profit in a year.

Results are a mixed bag for BlackBerry, which sold 1 million of its new Z10 handsets.

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"Getting back to a profitable quarter is just the starting line, not the finish line," said Thorsten Heins, who was appointed chief executive in January.

BlackBerry, which changed its name from Research in Motion earlier this year, has been struggling to secure its position in the smartphone market it once dominated. Company executives have said they would be satisfied with capturing enough of the market to only trail Apple's iPhone and smartphones made by Google's Android software.

But that may be a tall order, and investors don't appear convinced. The company's stock fell about 1 percent Thursday after initial enthusiasm waned.

BlackBerry is betting on the success of the Z10 and the unreleased Q10 to secure that position. The Q10 includes BlackBerry's signature keyboard and will appeal to existing BlackBerry users, former users and business customers, Heins said.

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