Neil Hughes
Shares of BlackBerry stock tumbled early Friday, after the company reported an unexpected loss of $84 million and that it shipped just 2.7 million smartphones running its new BlackBerry 10 platform last quarter.
BlackBerry shipped total 6.8 million smartphones, which was up 13 percent sequentially from the previous quarter. However, less than half of those were BlackBerry 10 devices.
The numbers suggest that demand for BlackBerry 10 devices has cooled significantly since the company shipped 1 million Z10 handsets at launch in March. During their quarterly conference call, BlackBerry executives did not break down how the all-touchscreen Z10 performed compared to the keyboard-equipped Q10.
But the company did reveal that BlackBerry 10 will not be coming to its PlayBook tablet, which competes with Apple's iPad lineup. CEO Thorsten Heins cited "performance and user experience" concerns as the primary reasons.Less than half of the smartphones shipped by BlackBerry last quarter were running the company's latest operating system.
A leak from the company in March suggested that BlackBerry has a new tablet in its 2013 product roadmap. First introduced in 2011, the PlayBook has failed to capture a meaningful piece of the tablet market, and BlackBerry was forced to eat $485 million in inventory as a result.
Shares of BBRY stock were down as much as 25 percent in pre-market trading on Friday. Investors had hoped that the company would ship more than 3 million BlackBerry 10 handsets in the three-month frame.
While BlackBerry struggles in a smartphone market where it was once a major player, Apple saw shipments of 37.4 million iPhones in its most recent quarter. As BlackBerry diminishes and Microsoft struggles to gain traction with its Windows Phone platform, the smartphone space has increasingly become a two-horse race between Apple and Samsung.
"During the first quarter, we continued to focus our efforts on the global roll out of the BlackBerry 10 platform," Heins said. "We are still in the early stages of this launch, but already, the BlackBerry 10 platform and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 are proving themselves to customers to be very secure, flexible and dynamic mobile computing solutions.
"Over the next three quarters, we will be increasing our investments to support the roll out of new products and services, and to demonstrate that BlackBerry has established itself as a leading and vibrant player in next generation mobile computing solutions for both consumer and enterprise customers."
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94 Comments
There was analyst on CNBC yesterday that was hoping for a bigger than expected profit, instead he got a lost. Once you lose all of youre market shares and paint yourself in a corner getting out of it is no easy task.
I am sure blackberry taught they had the perfect phone back in the late 2000's. There is no such thing as a perfect product in tech. Apple has the perfect phone now right? it fits in the hands easy, you can reach all the screen with youre thumb, retina screen, great quality build, ... aint the thing perfect? Once you think that its the kiss of death.
The market is on the move, we went from feature phone to smartphone (Nok and blackberry died, Apple, Android appeared. Now we are going from smartphone to portable computer replacements, will Apple adapt? Maybe the solution is wearable devices and a smartphone, maybe its bigger screens, maybe its a little stick that docks into multiple devices (so it could a tablet,a laptop, a desktop, a TV, the brains of a robot, or the brains of youre car), maybe ... but having the "perfect" smartphone wont be enough. It takes vision and innovation to survives, something big companies often lacks because they think they have it all figured out.
[quote name="herbapou" url="/t/158287/blackberry-sees-quarterly-loss-of-84m-on-shipments-of-2-7m-bb10-phones#post_2354234"] I am sure blackberry taught they had the perfect phone back in the late 2000's. There is no such thing as a perfect product in tech. Apple has the perfect phone now right? it fits in the hands easy, you can reach all the screen with youre thumb, retina screen, great quality build, ... aint the thing perfect? Once you think that its the kiss of death. [/quote] Blackberry was slow to change and it cost them. They underestimated the iPhone. Apple doesn't underestimate the competition. It knows who it is. iOS 7 is a major change and I can't wait for new products that will use it. Apple adapts, others follow. Still what's more surprising is that they still sell the play book.
Its kind of a shame because the new BlackBerry OS isn't really all that bad considering what else is out there besides iOS. Like others have said, once you start the downward spiral, its hard to upright it. Just look at Apple...it took them quite a long time before something really caught on after their downward spiral in the 90's. The problem for them is, they really only do a couple of things...make mobile software and sell it with their own hardware. I can't really see them coming out of this if this is all they want to do. Apple has really put the hurt on them and other platforms such as Android and Windows Phone isn't helping either. They've been out of the spotlight for so long its almost like people have forgotten about them.
And the toilet swirl continues for BB. Poor guys they really worked hard on this comeback focusing on quality. There is just no ecosystem behind it.
Still what's more surprising is that they still sell the play book.
Unless the goal behind iOS 7 is multiple resolution scalability and easy adaptation to a broad range of devices, I dont see it a has major innovation. If its just to follow the flat interface trend for cosmetic reasons, its pretty dissapointing imo.