Best Buy cuts price of BlackBerry Z10 smartphone

Best Buy cuts price of BlackBerry Z10 smartphone to $49.99

Here's another bad sign for BlackBerry -- but good news if you are in the market for a Z10 smartphone.

Best Buy has dropped the price of the Canadian phone maker's flagship device. The Z10 is now available from the tech retailer for a smidgen under $50 when bought with a two-year contract for Verizon or AT&T.

This year BlackBerry has been gunning to return to relevance in the U.S. smartphone market, where it has been trailing rivals Google and Apple.

At the heart of its turnaround was the new BlackBerry 10 operating system and the Z10 smartphone, which has a full 4.2-inch touchscreen and launched in March.

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The new $49.99 price tag from Best Buy may be a sign that BlackBerry is struggling to sell the phone, whose regular price for AT&T and Verizon is $200.

Companies tend to drop prices when products aren't selling.

That's what AT&T did to clear out its inventory of the HTC First, the so-called Facebook phone. After initially launching it at $99 with a two-year contract, AT&T dropped the phone's price to 99 cents in order to spur sales.

Tech products also tend to go on sale when a new version of the device is close to launching.

According to a report last month by CNET, BlackBerry is developing a device called the A10 that would succeed the Z10. However, that device isn't expected to launch until at least November.