BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) announced today that its smartphones have earned three Red Dot Awards for design. Company management also said that it is planning to launch a healthcare services platform in India.
As a result of the positive news, BlackBerry’s trading volume is rising rapidly. The company’s average daily volume on the NASDAQ is about 16.5 million shares. As of this writing, just one hour into regular trading at the NASDAQ, already more than 10.3 million shares have changed hands on the exchange.
BlackBerry reveals design awards
In a press release this morning, BlackBerry said its Q10, Q5 and Z30 handsets received awards from the prestigious Red Dot panel. The 40-member panel examined nearly 5,000 entries from 53 different countries and chose winners based on each product’s “quality and innovative strength.”
The Red Dot committee will hand out the awards and recognize the winners at the annual Red Dot Gala and Designers’ Night in Essen, Germany. In addition, the winners will be shown off in a special exhibition at the Red Dot Museum. Visitors will be able to handle BlackBerry’s winning devices between July 8 and August 3. The museum holds the world’s biggest contemporary design exhibition covering over 4,000 square meters.
BlackBerry to launch healthcare platform in India
BlackBerry India Managing Director Sunil Lalvani also told the Economic Times last week that they are planning to roll out a healthcare service to bring together thousands of medical devices so that health problems can be detected earlier. BlackBerry plans to launch its connected healthcare services through its partnership with NantHealth, which management revealed in April.
According to Lalvani, they have begun work on rolling out their connected healthcare system in India. They don’t have an official launch date though. BlackBerry is doing trials of the service with a number of hospitals in India. Currently NantHealth’s platform is installed at around 250 hospitals around the globe, connecting over 16,000 medical devices that collect over 3 billion vital signs every year.
The struggling Canadian company has been trying to make up for market share losses in the smartphone industry. India is one of the markets BlackBerry has been focusing on because its revenue has continued to grow there despite losses in other parts of the world. Healthcare providers in the country are expected to spend more than $1 billion on IT services and products this year, which is a 4% increase from what they spent last year.
