It's another black day
for BlackBerry. The company officially announced dismal quarterly results,
which included a $965 million quarterly loss.
Sales for the struggling smartphone maker's
second fiscal quarter came in at just $1.6 billion, a 45% drop from what BlackBerry (BBRY) reported
one year ago, the company said Friday.
The results included a $934 million charge for
unsold Z10 devices, the first phone launched on the new BlackBerry 10
operating system. BlackBerry added that a big chunk of the devices it did sell
in the quarter were of older BlackBerry 7 phones.
In what could be the understatement of the
year, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins said in a press release that the company is
"disappointed" with the results.
"We understand how some of the activities
we are going through create uncertainty, but we remain a financially strong
company with $2.6 billion in cash and
no debt," Heins insisted.
Shares of BlackBerry were up about 1% in early
trading following the release, as investors had braced themselves after last
week's preliminary announcement. But the stock is down more than 30% so far in
2013, and nearly 90% over the past five years.
Friday's results could be one of the last
public earnings reports from BlackBerry.
On Monday, Fairfax Financial -- a Canadian
insurance company that is BlackBerry's largest shareholder -- said it was considering buying BlackBerry for $4.7 billion.
Cynics think Fairfax is simply trying to draw in other offers and cash out
its 10% stake, but if Fairfax does make an offer, it could face a bidding war over BlackBerry's valuable patents.
BlackBerry may have little left of value
besides those patents. The company said last week it now plans to offer just
four smartphones instead of six, and it's finally giving up on the consumer
market. BlackBerry's market share has plunged in the past few years due to competition
from Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) and
companies like Samsung that make phones running on the Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) Android
operating system.
Instead, BlackBerry will focus on corporate
customers and "prosumers" -- professional consumers who are also
increasingly opting for iPhones and Androids.
BlackBerry's consumer struggles became worse
with Blackberry 10, the operating system that was meant to save the company.
The software's release was delayed several times -- essentially leaving
BlackBerry customers with no new phones to buy. After it finally launched in
January, sales of the new devices have sorely disappointed.
Although BlackBerry is in bad shape, it's
premature for BlackBerry diehards to
worry about their service being taken away just yet. Still, some analysts think
BlackBerry's userbase could fall to 0 within just two to three years as
subscribers continue to leave in droves.
BlackBerry will not be holding a conference
call with analysts Friday to discuss its results. A spokeswoman for BlackBerry
said it was due to "the Fairfax news." But analysts and investors
haven't heard from BlackBerry's management beyond what's been said in recent
press releases.
The company didn't hold a press call after the
preliminary earnings release last week. It also was silent following the
announcement of Fairfax's offer
Blackberry is having a bad time, another record shows that blackberry is in loss constantly, how will they manage to recover this loss?
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