BlackBerry Shares Plunge as Phone Debut Underwhelms Investors

BlackBerry shares tumbled 12 percent after the company’s long-awaited BlackBerry 10 debut, signaling that investors are skeptical the new models can win back customers from Apple Inc. and Google Inc.’s Android.

The company, known as Research In Motion until a name change today, introduced a touch-screen phone called the Z10 and a version with a physical keyboard named the Q10, both of which will run the revamped BB10 software. The Z10 won’t appear in the U.S. until March, with the Q10 likely to follow in April, the Waterloo, Ontario-based company said.