BlackBerry shares crumble as it reveals poor BB10 shipments

BlackBerry has delivered bad news today, reporting a quarterly loss that has seen shares freefall by 20 per cent.

Weak sales of the BlackBerry 10-toting Z10 and Q10 handsets contributed to a net loss of US$84m (about AU$92m, £55m) for the company, which is struggling to take on Apple and Samsung. It also predicted an operating loss for its next quarter.

BlackBerry confirmed during a conference call that it shipped just 2.7 million BlackBerry 10 devices in the first quarter, which won't fill a lot of people with hope. This means that most of the 6.8 million handsets shipped were last-gen devices.

On the positive side, revenue was up $3.1 billion, compared to $2.8 billion from the last quarter, though it's not enough to signal a change in fortunes for the company.

LackBerry

Francisco Jeronimo, Research Director for European Consumer Wireless and Mobile Communications at analyst firm IDC, told TechRadar that the problem is that BB10 is currently causing more hassle than benefits.

"Companies are facing this painful process of migrating from BB7 to BB10," he said, also adding, "consumers don't find the same benefits in data plans on BB10 as they did on BB7"

Jeronimo said that BlackBerry is suffering from "Nokia syndrome" but said that where the two depart is in their expectations. "They need to be a lot more realistic on what they're telling the market and what their expectations are."

"I still see none of the applications that I use on other platforms available on BB10," he added.

However, President and Chief Executive Thorsten Heins said in an investor call that there's light at the end of the tunnel. "BlackBerry 10 is still in the early stages of its transition," he said, pointing out that the operating system is just five months old.

"During the first quarter, we continued to focus our efforts on the global roll out of the BlackBerry 10 platform," he added in a statement.

"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."

Via Reuters