BlackBerry no longer can use the excuse of being in a “transitional quarter,” but that does not mean their fiscal year has started on the right foot.
The struggling maker of smartphones saw its stock shares slump over 17% during Friday’s premarket trading after the Toronto based company had announced fiscal first quarter numbers that were much lower than estimates on Wall Street.
For many BlackBerry watchers it has been nothing but hurry up and wait, the BlackBerry 10 operating system was long delayed and did not launch until January, during the fiscal fourth quarter for the company.
This most recent quarter was the chance for BlackBerry to prove it was turning itself around. Unfortunately, that chance did not pan out, as the quarter ended in disappointment financially.
BlackBerry sales were $3.1 billion, which equaled a loss of 13 cents a share and analysts had expected the company to earn a profit of 6 cents per share with revenue of more than $3.4 billion.
Considering that the new operating system is the center of the company turnaround, Blackberry did not mention its new platform that much in its new release, but plans to do so in its Friday conference call.
Smartphone shipments, said BlackBerry officials were up 13% to more than 6.8 million, but did not specify how many of those units had the new BlackBerry 10.
Analysts will want to know more about the sales of the Z10 phone on Friday in the company conference call. The Z10 was launched in late March in more locations including the U.S.
Thus far, BlackBerry only has sales from its Z10 to prove the new OS is a success. The second device with the BlackBerry 10, the Q10, featuring the classic QWERTY keyboard, was launched in limited markets during the recently ended quarter.
