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BlackBerry underperforms

June 28, 2013

Canadian phonemaker RIM has logged huge losses in its first fiscal quarter as new models hit the market too late. Sales figures didn't meet analysts expectations, sending premarket shares down.

https://p.dw.com/p/18y4z
Icons on the display of a new BlackBerry Z10 handset EPA/ANDY RAIN +++(c) dpa - Bildfunk+++
Image: picture-alliance/dpa

Shares of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) took a tumble in premarket trading on Friday, dropping by almost 20 percent.

The stock market reacted to the company's poor performance in the first quarter ending at the beginning of June. RIM announced it lost $84 million (64 million euros) in the three months under revision on revenue of $3.1 billion.

The Canadians said they sold a total of 6.8 million phones versus 7.8 million units year-on-year. But the BlackBerry maker failed to break out how many of its new phones were bought by customers worldwide.

Earning cash with smartphones

Sales backlog

German CEO Thorsten Heins admitted the company was back in the red after doing better for a while because of a rigid savings course.

Back in January, he had presented the first models with the new BlackBerry 10 operating system which was found crucial for market penetration.

"We're only at the beginning of market introduction," Heins said in a statement in Waterloo.

Novelties offered by the company include the Z10 with a large touchscreen as well as the Q10 with the classic BlackBerry keyboard. In May came the Q5, a much cheaper model meant to be sold in emerging economies predominantly.

But the smartphones took longer to hit stores than had been expected by analysts, weighing on RIM's first-quarter profits.

hg/kms (dpa, AP)