Two big retailers in the UK have begun cutting prices of the Blackberry Z10, after its launch in the country last month. 

Specifically, Carphone Warehouse is offering around a £160 reduction for the handset on the 3 network. Pricing for the handset is now available for  £29 on a £29 a month, two-year contract plan. Previously it was available for £36 a month with a free handset, the Telegraph first noted.

Vodafone has hopped on the repricing as well, introducing a £33 a month web deal for the Z10, an effective £72 cut over the life of the contract. 

The thought by many analysts and industry watchers is that carriers aren't seeing the performance they would like out of BlackBerry Z10 sales. However, according to BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins, that wasn't the case at the handset's launch.

READ: BlackBerry Z10 review

Speaking to the media, Heins said the Z10 set records for the Waterloo-based company in its first two markets. In Canada, the Z10 saw a 50 per cent better launch than any other BlackBerry launch in the country. As for the UK, the company saw three times its best performance ever for the first week of sales for a BlackBerry smartphone.

Of course, as time passed the hype may have gone down. James Faucette, an analyst at Pacific Crest said: “We believe that meaningful price cuts so soon after launch, while probably at the initial discretion of the carriers, is likely to relegate the Z10 to being a mid-tier device with very low gross margins.”

The BlackBerry Z10 is set to launch on Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T in the US this month. Perhaps a new market will drive the Z10 as a success for the company.

As we noted in our review, the lack of applications like Instagram and Netflix (now confirmed as not coming any time soon by the media-streaming giant) and performance of competitors made the BlackBerry Z10 a hard buy for non-BlackBerry enthusiasts.

BlackBerry is set to launch its second BB10 handset, the BlackBerry Q10 with A full-Qwerty keyboard, later in the spring. Interestingly, US carrier Sprint opted for just the Q10 rather than the Z10, presumably because of its reliance on the iPhone, which Faucette's comments may back up, and the worry that diehard fans aren't ready to ditch the keyboard just yet. 

Is this too little too late from BlackBerry?