BlackBerry Shares Drop As Home Depot Says Ditching Phone

BlackBerry shares fell 4.6 percent in New York trading after Home Depot Inc. said it will stop issuing the Canadian company’s phones to its corporate employees and managers.

The home-improvement chain will swap out 10,000 BlackBerry models with Apple Inc.’s iPhones, said Stephen Holmes, a spokesman for Atlanta-based Home Depot. The change won’t affect the 60,000 mobile devices used by store employees, he said.

The move deals a setback to BlackBerry, formerly known as Research In Motion Ltd., which unveiled a new lineup last month in a comeback attempt. After years of losing ground to the iPhone and Android devices, the BlackBerry’s market share has slipped into the single digits.

Shares of the Waterloo, Ontario-based company fell to $15.73 at the close in New York. The stock had climbed 39 percent this year before today, fueled by optimism that the new BlackBerry 10 operating system will be a hit.

Home Depot’s switch to the iPhone was previously reported by the AppleInsider site.

To contact the reporters on this story: Scott Moritz in New York at smoritz6@bloomberg.net; Chris Burritt in Greensboro at cburritt@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net