Good news for BlackBerry came in two doses Thursday: T-Mobile says testing of the new BlackBerry Z10 is going well and it aims to be the first provider in the U.S. to sell the phone. Plus, an upgrade from Wells Fargo bolstered its stock.

T-Mobile USA, the fourth-largest U.S. mobile-service provider, said its tests of the new BlackBerry Z10 are going well, and it’s aiming to be the first American carrier “out of the gate” with the phone next month.

“The device is more stable than we anticipated,” said Frank Sickinger, head of business sales at T-Mobile USA, a unit of Deutsche Telekom AG. “If we are able to speed up the launch date, we will do that. Right now it’s looking like mid-March.”

The encouraging words come a week after BlackBerry unveiled the new phone, which is already on sale in the U.K. and Canada.

Meanwhile, shares of Research In Motion (the company’s former name) rose 3 percent  with Wells Fargo saying that better gross margins from the company’s new phone will offset potentially limited demand.

In a morning research note, analyst Maynard Um upgraded RIM shares (Nasdaq: RIMM) to outperform. Um said the current valuation already discounts the potentially limited demand for RIM’s new BlackBerry phone that was unveiled last week.

RIM shares have now more than doubled from nine-year lows in September on optimism and mostly favorable reviews off the new BlackBerry. The software has a fresh interface designed for touchscreens. The once pioneering smartphone has been overshadowed by the iPhone and Android phones in recent years.

The company maintains a research and development operation in the Triangle. 

Rating the Shares

 UM said the outperform rating is predicated on the view that gross margins will improve with the release of the new much-delayed phones. He upgraded the valuation target to between $19 and $20, versus the prior range of $11-$13 under the previous analyst’s call.

“While it may very well turn out that demand for BlackBerry 10 is limited, we believe the valuation already discounts some level of failure and think the risk/reward at this juncture of the BlackBerry 10 cycle is attractive,” Um said.

BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis said the stock has risen lately on optimism around the launch and mostly positive reviews, but cautioned it’s not based on hard sales data.

“Some of the optimism may get tempered when they report,” Gillis said in an interview.

Gillis said it’s a big problem that a physical keyboard version might not arrive in the U.S. until May or June, a month or two behind other parts of the world. RIM chief executive Thorsten Heins told The Associated Press this week that the keyboard version will likely come out eight to 10 weeks after a carrier releases a model with only a touch screen, the BlackBerry Z10. The Z10 is expected in the U.S. in mid-March, so eight to 10 weeks brings the U.S. date for the BlackBerry Q10 to mid-May to early June.

“The big thing is the keyboard. That’s a long time,” said Gillis, who noted it will go up against a new phone from Google and maybe a new iPhone refresh. “People were expecting April.”

Such a delay would further complicate RIM’s efforts to hang on to customers tempted by Apple’s trend-setting iPhone and a range of devices running Google’s Android operating system. Even as the BlackBerry has fallen behind rivals in recent years, many BlackBerry users have stayed loyal so far specifically because they prefer a physical keyboard over the touch screen found on the iPhone and most Android devices. But the temptations to switch grow with each additional delay, despite favorable reviews for the new operating system.

Shares rose 57 cents, or 3.5 percent, to $16.62 in afternoon trading. Shares had risen to a 52-week high of $18.32 on Jan. 24 from a nine-year low of $6.22 on Sept. 24.

BlackBerry hasn’t give a firm U.S. release date, saying the Z10 would be available sometime in March. That raised concern among investors, who drove down BlackBerry’s stock 17 percent in the two days after the debut event.

The U.S. is BlackBerry’s largest single market, and the company is counting on the new phone to win back customers lost to Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Google Inc.’s Android. After pioneering the smartphone industry, BlackBerry has seen its share of the market fall to the single digits.

While the price of the Z10 hasn’t been determined yet, Sickinger said the $199 price BlackBerry announced Jan. 30 is consistent with what T-Mobile USA has considered. T-Mobile USA, based in Bellevue, Washington, should be able to offer the Z10 to business customers about a week before retail sales start, Sickinger said.

Playing Catch-Up

For T-Mobile USA, which is merging with MetroPCS Communications Inc., the Z10 could provide a new way to woo customers — especially business users. The carrier has been struggling to keep pace with rivals Verizon Wireless, AT&T Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp.

Still, all the big carriers eventually plan to offer the new phone. BlackBerry, based in Waterloo, Ontario, said last week that lengthier testing procedures were behind the longer wait for the product in the U.S.

T-Mobile USA Chief Executive Officer John Legere has vowed to shake up the industry with measures such as selling phones on installment plans, rather than the typical approach of subsidizing the devices in return for two-year commitments.

In business services, where AT&T and Verizon dominate, Sickinger sees an opportunity to build on T-Mobile USA’s 5.5 percent marketshare. The arrival of new devices like the BlackBerry Z10 will help win business customers, he said. T- Mobile also will offer Apple’s iPhone later this year for the first time.

“I’m glad to see BlackBerry launch a relevant product,” Sickinger said. “BlackBerry stands to do very well in 2013 with T-Mobile.”
BlackBerry shares rose 5.7 percent to $16.96 at the close in New York.

(The AP and Bloomberg contributed to this report.)