BlackBerry shares rose Wednesday by 6.1 percent after the company's CEO Thorsten Heins told a Spanish newspaper that BlackBerry Z10 has attracted other smartphone users more than expected.

"We are receiving a very positive response to BlackBerry 10 from our customers, but it's also been attractive for customers coming from other platforms," Heins said in an interview with Expansion, "We are a little surprised by that."

Blackberry stock has risen 12 percent this year and Wednesday the shares were as high as $13.50 in New York trading, the Bloomberg has reported.  

"Operators are supporting us a lot because they want BlackBerry 10 to be an alternative to Samsung and Apple and they've seen it's a real alternative," Heins said in the Expansion interview.

BlackBerry also signed its second major supply contract Wednesday for its new touchscreen Z10 flagship smartphone. Earlier this week the company signed an agreement with Germany to supply BlackBerry Z10 device.

According to The Canadian Press, the Mental Health Organization based in London has ordered 1,800 units of touchscreen BlackBerry Z10 devices and the organization will receive shipments of the phones throughout the year.

After the announcement of signing the agreement for supplying BlackBerry Z10 devices, the company's stock was up by 71 percent to $13.61 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

"BlackBerry has been our mobile enterprise solution of choice for a number of years and we're committed to a full-scale BlackBerry 10 deployment," said Stephen Asante-Boakye, head of technical services at the Mental Health Group.

"During April and May, we will roll out 700 BlackBerry Z10 smartphones running on the new BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10, with an additional 1,100 devices set to roll out throughout the remainder of 2013," he added

In a different statement, the Waterloo-based company said that the BlackBerry Z10 will go on sale in Mexican market by March 20 through a leading wireless service provider America Movil SAB's Telcel. The company also said that carrier partners have yet to provide an exact release date for the United States. However, BlackBerry has not disclosed the specific release date for Q10, keyboard version. 

To report problems or to leave feedback about this article, e-mail:

To contact the editor, e-mail: