BlackBerry sees quarterly loss of $84M on shipments of 2.7M BB10 phones
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.
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."
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."
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.
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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jungmark
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.
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.
“This is going into the installed base of more than 70 million BlackBerry users so we have quite some expectations. We expect several tens of million of units.”
2.7M != tens of millions
http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/04/29/blackberry-ceo-expects-several-tens-of-millions-of-q10-sales
To be fair, he may have meant over the life of the products. :rolleyes:
Quote:
Originally Posted by macxpress
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.
Well, Apple is better position than Blackberry because its in more markets even if it has just a few products. All you need in a market is a few good products to cover the segments. Apple also as a lot of cash and it still have a lot of its innovative brains working for them. IF those people dont think they have acheived god status and keep working on new ideas, Apple may surprise with great new products.
Apple ipod market strategy is the mother of what to do in a market. Its a dying market, but they nailed it.They may do it in the tablet market too, imo they only need just another model. But on the phone side they are way off imo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by herbapou
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.
wait... you think iOS is all about screenshots? Did you not watch any of the wwdc sessions on the new apis?
If you think iOS 7 is just cosmetic changes, think again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by herbapou
Well, Apple is better position than Blackberry because its in more markets even if it has just a few products. All you need in a market is a few good products to cover the segments. Apple also as a lot of cash and it still have a lot of its innovative brains working for them. IF those people dont think they have acheived god status and keep working on new ideas, Apple may surprise with great new products.
Apple ipod market strategy is the mother of what to do in a market. Its a dying market, but they nailed it.They may do it in the tablet market too, imo they only need just another model. But on the phone side they are way off imo.
They sold 37.4 mil iPhones but they are way off? What are you? A Bloomberg reporter?
It's what the phone can do. BBs were perfect when all people wanted to do was make calls, BBM, and email. SJ initially thought that the iPhone was complete until he was convinced to allow apps. Allowing devs to make the device that much better is what makes the iPhone as close to perfection as a phone can get.
I've come to the conclusion that for Apple to succeed, other must fail. It is a zero sum game
For Blackberry, I will be looking for rapid deterioration of its messaging subscriber base. I'd like to see it decline to 50 million or less within the next year. Without that recurring revenue, the whole Blackberry business will quickly collapse on itself and it will start realizing very large losses. My primary concern is they have a large cash balance. It is a wounded dog that will bit out of frustrate and do erratic things that can cause damage to the overall market. They need to go
Second, Nokia. The business has been propped up by massive quarterly payoffs from Microsoft. Which in turn comes from legacy Windows and Office revenue streams. Once those payments end, the picture will be clearer. I want to see substantial, large quarterly revenue and smartphone unit sales misses. Nokia is also desperate as evidenced by their dramatic price decreases - they are trying to price smartphones like feature phones. If they fail, they may deal a fatal blow to Microsoft's phone efforts. Two kills with one bullet. I am very encouraged by the fact that there were zero Windows Phone software announcements at Microsoft's Build event. Comical the tech press has not picked up on this. Glad to see Ballmer is executing on his "rapid release" vision
I look forward to see both of these companies fail. It will be the cleansing of the forest so the redwoods can grow
Quote:
Originally Posted by dugbug
wait... you think iOS is all about screenshots? Did you not watch any of the wwdc sessions on the new apis?
Well, the thing that gets me exited is the game control API's. It went under the radar but it as so much potential. iOS 7 as new features also, like multitasking switch, maps integration across devices, but new features on a new OS is kind of... expected.
any new groundbreaking "features" I missed? Please enlightent me. All I saw is expected incremental improvements.
Quote:
Originally Posted by herbapou
Well, the thing that gets me exited is the game control API's. It went under the radar but it as so much potential. iOS 7 as new features also, like multitasking switch, maps integration across devices, but new features on a new OS is kind of... expected.
any new groundbreaking "features" I missed? Please enlightent me. All I saw is expected incremental improvements.
The new textkit and spritekit are massive and impressive undertakings. These are not 'small' things. Breakthroughs? No, no antigravity boots or travelling in tubes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dugbug
The new textkit and spritekit are massive and impressive undertakings. These are not 'small' things. Breakthroughs? No, no antigravity boots or travelling in tubes.
Depends. If combined with game control APi's and an Apple TV that support games, then we have something. Otherwise all we will get is more games on the app stores. Well, with the combination of sizable flat interface, control api's and spritekit, we may get somewhere indeed.
If Apple nail the portable game market is will be nice. But if Apple put up something that revamp both the portable and console game markets, now we have something great. And if Apple revamp the portable game market, the game console market and the TV market in one blow, now we have a true revolution.
Will it be nice, great or a revolution? The market is pricing the stock for the worst case scenario, which is an iphone 5s, a retina ipad mini and a new ipad 5. I think if Apple enter a significant new market like mobile games, console games or TV, then we get a rebound. Otherwise is more EPS declines, more unit sales declines and more market share lost.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dugbug
wait... you think iOS is all about screenshots? Did you not watch any of the wwdc sessions on the new apis?
I have been watching them and they have some amazing new stuff. All the new scene kit APIs are going to make for some really cool apps to be coming out in my opinion.