BlackBerry Shares Fall Sharply After Results

Uncertainty over the success of the company's new phones and worse-than-expected financials sees shares take a sharp dive.

          

BlackBerry has reported a net loss of $84m (£55m) for the first quarter of the year, missing analysts' forecasts and sending shares down by 17%.

The Canadian phone maker has been trying to turn around its fortunes with the release of new handsets, the Q10 and Z10, which launched earlier this year.

However, despite a 13% rise in shipments to 6.8 million, the firm's report did not give a breakdown of how many sales the new phones achieved in their first full quarter on sale in the US.

BlackBerry's revenue for the three months to June 1 was $3.1bn (£2.03bn), missing analysts' expectations of  $3.37bn.

The quarterly results represent a loss of 16 cents (10p) per share. They are a big improvement on the same time last year though, when it lost $518m (£340m).

The company has been struggling to keep customers tempted by the likes of flagship touchscreen handsets such as Apple's iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy S4. The two manufacturers own nearly three-quarters of the global smartphone market.

BlackBerry's reputation also took a hit when its phones were hit by much-publicised service disruptions in 2011.

The firm's golden hope in stopping its decline is the Z10 and Q10 offering.

Model Lily Cole helped launch the Q10 in the UK in April this year

The Z10 disposed of the company's trademark Qwerty keyboard in favour of a full touchscreen, while the Q10 combined the two features.

Some analysts doubted their appeal because of their small screen size compared with competitors but BlackBerry previously claimed that initial demand was strong.

Announcing the latest financial results, company CEO Thorsten 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."