$84M Q1 loss $84M Q1 loss ""BlackBerry sells 6.8 million smartphones; reports"" $84M Q1 loss $84M Q1 loss

BlackBerry sells 6.8 million smartphones; reports $84M Q1 loss



Smartphone shipments were below analyst expectations, but BlackBerry

CEO asks for patience



By Mikael Ricknäs



IDG News Service - BlackBerry shipped 6.8 million smartphones and

recorded a $84 million loss during the three months to June 1, as it

struggles to turn around its fortunes.



The first quarter of BlackBerry's fiscal year served as a referendum

on how consumers and business users have received the new BlackBerry

10 smartphones. The company's quarterly earnings, released Friday,

noted that 2.7 million phones running the new OS were sold, a figure

that disappointed analysts.



Shipments of 7.7 million phones would have been an "OK" result,

according to IDC research director Francisco Jeronimo. The soft sales

lead analysts to question the future of BlackBerry 10 and the company

during a conference call on the results.



BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins offered various themes on the same reply

as a defense: "BlackBerry 10 is still in the early stages on its

transition. In fact, we are only five months in to what is the launch

of an entirely new mobile computing platform," he said.



The BlackBerry Z10 is now available in 147 countries, while the

QWERTY-equipped Q10 is on sale in 96 countries, with 50 being added

during BlackBerry's fiscal second quarter. The cheaper Q5, which also

has a physical keyboard, premiered in Dubai last week. It will be

distributed more widely during the second quarter, according to Heins.

More products are on the way, but the company will not have more than

six new devices in the market at any time, he said.



Marina Koytcheva, an analyst at CCS Insight, isn't surprised by

BlackBerry's continued struggles, but agreed with Heins' assessment.



"It remains too early to tell whether the new BlackBerry 10 platform

can emerge as a credible alternative to Android or iOS with shipments

of the long-awaited Q10 device and recently announced Q5 only just

starting in many markets. We need to wait a couple more quarters

before writing off BlackBerry's chances," she said via email.



The company may be working on new products, but a BlackBerry 10

upgrade for its PlayBook tablet is not one of them.



"Our teams have spent a great deal of time and energy looking at

solutions that could move the BlackBerry 10 experience to PlayBook.

But unfortunately I am not satisfied with the level of performance and

user experience, and I made the difficult decision to stop these

efforts," Heins said.



BlackBerry reported revenue of $3.1 billion, up 9% from the same

period a year earlier. Net loss from continuing operations for the

quarter was $84 million, compared to a net loss of $510 million a year

earlier.



BlackBerry's OSes had a 2.9% market share during the first three

months of the calendar year, compared to 6.4% during the same period

in 2012. To grow sales, BlackBerry has to do a couple of things.



"It needs strong campaigns to drive awareness of the new platform and

user experience; new devices at lower price points, and to refocus on

the enterprise segment where they still have a chance. The consumer

segment is lost and the only chance is on the enterprise segment,

particularly the large enterprises," Jeronimo said.



The smartphone market remains highly competitive, making it difficult

to estimate units, revenue and levels of profitability, according to

BlackBerry.

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