BlackBerry 10 Leaves Much To Be Desired, Stock Plunges 26%
Shortly after shipping only 2.7 million Blackberry 10 devices, the Canadian smartphone manufacturer released a surprise fiscal first-quarter loss. Wall Street experts had originally expected over a million more Blackberry 10 devices to ship and for the company to yield a profit this time around. Consequently, Blackberry (BBRY) shares plummeted a staggering 26% percent today. BlackBerry lost $84 million, or 13 cents per share and first-quarter sales totaled just $3.1 billion, short of Wall Street’s expectation of $3.4 billion.
The BlackBerry 10 operating system was intended to be the new foundation for a Blackberry comeback with its sleek new flagship device and the complementing modern OS. After going through several long delays, Blackberry 10 finally launched in January and BB 10 devices only made up 40% of the company’s in the time since the new OS was unveiled.
BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins stayed positive on a conference call with analysts on Friday. Heins spoke of “investing in growth, a “foundation of innovation” and being “still in our launch cycle.” He also supported the company’s heavy spending on the BlackBerry 10 launch.
“We want total penetration of the market … to do that you need to invest in marketing, you need to invest in promotions,” Heins said. “And we’re not done yet. There’s more exciting devices coming, and we will spend to market those as well.”
With the company’s focus now on its core devices, BlackBerry said Friday it is essentially giving up on one long-struggling piece of hardware: the PlayBook tablet. Heins revealed the PlayBook will not receive an update to BlackBerry 10. A spokesman for the company said BlackBerry “will still support the current configuration.”
So, where does this leave the tumultuous company? BlackBerry is also making a play for emerging markets where smartphone use hasn’t yet reached the saturation point. In May the company revealed the Q5, a brightly colored phone that features both a tactile keyboard and a 3.1-inch touchscreen. Pricing for the Q5 wasn’t announced, but it’s expected to be a low-cost phone that will go on sale in July in select emerging markets.
Maybe you should take a look at David’s review of the Blackberry Z10… he has a few good points…
