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Canadian gov: Have half a million BlackBerrys now, pay later!

We're NOT desperate, we've been doing this since 2006

Telefonica will be spending another €200m with BlackBerry, borrowed from Export Development Canada (EDC) as part of its ongoing deal with the company and its supporting country.

It's far from the first time Telefonica has taken advantage of low-interest loans from the government-backed agency. EDC has been lending to Telefonica since 2006, but this is a significant wodge of cash which could see another 500,000 Z10 handsets entering the Telefonica supply chain.

Where they'll end up is far from clear. Telefonica operates across Europe and has a stake in China Unicom too, but it's the extensive operations in South America which are the likely target for the new devices.

Neither is it obvious that Z10 (or Q10) devices will be on the shopping list. That half-million handsets figure comes from CrackBerry's über-optimistic analysis of the deal

BlackBerry shipped five million older handsets over last winter and, so far, shows no signs of scaling back production of profitable devices. It would be a mistake to think this signals an upswing in support for the latest flagship.

But neither is it a desperate government bailing out an iconic company, as The Verge would have it. Telefonica has been taking EDC money since 2006, and while EDC might be backed by the Canadian government it's still required to make a profit on transactions, so this remains a commercial arrangement.

In truth this is a lot like BlackBerry's last results; cautiously good news but nothing to get really excited about, despite what those charged with writing the headlines will try to imply (quite so - Ed). ®

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