By: iPadfanzz staff on March 28, 2013
BlackBerry's latest results are in and they are not too good. The company says it shipped 1 million BlackBerry Z10 handsets to customers, mainly in the UK, 370,000 PlayBook tablets, but lost 3 million subscribers. In total the company sold over 6 million smartphones.
For the three months that ended on March 2, the Canadian smartphone company reported a profit of $98 million, or 19 cents a share, compared with a year-ago loss of $125 million, or 24 cents a share. Excluding items such as its cost-savings program, the company reported an adjusted EPS of 22 cents. Its sales suffered a decline of 36 percent to $2.68 billion.
The Z10 sales include figures from only a few early launch markets. Results from the U.S. aren't part of the fourth quarter.
The company witnessed a major loss in terms of subscribers as it lost 3 million subscribers over the last quarter as its customers ventured elsewhere. BlackBerry says it has 76 million subscribers, down from 79 million last quarter, and 80 million the quarter before. The decline clearly underscores the challenges the company is currently facing.
Experts suggest that the reason for such strong gross margins is because the Z10 is a more profitable device than older models.
"We have implemented numerous changes at BlackBerry over the past year and those changes have resulted in the Company returning to profitability in the fourth quarter," said Thorsten Heins, president and CEO of BlackBerry. "With the launch of BlackBerry 10, we have introduced the newest and what we believe to be the most innovative mobile computing platform in the market today. Customers love the device and the user experience, and our teams and partners are now focused on getting those devices into the hands of BlackBerry consumer and enterprise customers," he added.
The key for BlackBerry is to tap into the new customer base which is created by the sales of BlackBerry Z10 and the company's next-generation BlackBerry 10 operating system. The OS is giving a fresh start for BlackBerry, and one that the company hopes will turn its fortunes around.
