The bad news keeps on coming for BlackBerry. Following the announcement last week that it was to slash 40 per cent of its workforce, the company has now revealed catastrophic results for its fiscal Q2 2014.
The company said it expects an operating loss of between $950m (£592m) and $995m, with revenues around $1.6bn (about half of what analysts were expecting), and 3.7m smartphone shipments, most of which were BlackBerry 7 devices. In fact, BlackBerry also announced $930 – $960m of inventory writedowns, which it said were “primarily attributable” to BlackBerry Z10 devices, “as a consequence of the more intense competition the company is experiencing in its hardware business”.
The figures point to extremely disappointing take-up of the Q10 and Z10 handsets running on BlackBerry’s much-delayed BB10 OS, which were touted as being key to reviving the company’s fortunes.
BlackBerry also said it would reduce its smartphone portfolio from six devices to four, including two high-end, and two entry-level devices. And it announced its latest “refocus”, with the lens this time set to the “enterprise and prosumer market, offering end-to-end solutions, including hardware, software and services”. Which, if nothing else, begs the question: what exactly is a ‘prosumer’ in mobile phone terms? 
Despite all this, BlackBerry still continues to style itself as: “a global leader wireless innovation”. Perhaps as part of its latest restructure, BlackBerry should also take a look at that boilerplate…
The Rise and Fall of BlackBerry. Read
