After posting better earnings in the first quarter of 2013, BlackBerry proved to be a grave disappointment for its shareholders, as the Canadian smartphone maker posted terrible earnings in the second quarter of this year. The QWERTY smartphone manufacturer posted revenue of $3.1 billion and a loss of $84 million. As a result of these earnings, the stock price of the company also received a big hit, as it plunged down by 27 percent one day after the second quarter report from BlackBerry surfaced. The down fall of BlackBerry’s share price did not stop after that, as on July 5th it touched single digits from last month’s $14 price and $140 from 2008. Now BlackBerry will be getting ready to face harsh questions from unhappy shareholders when the annual meeting of the BB10 device maker will take place this week.
Moreover, poor earnings from BlackBerry have also given birth to a new strategy which is either to sell the entire or some part of the company along with its portfolio. Government officials on the other hand have made it clear that they would review such a deal in detail if a foreign company makes an attempt to buy BlackBerry.
However, before the announcement of BlackBerry’s second quarter earnings, several analysts were hoping that the Waterloo-based company would post even better results than the last financial quarter after the Z10 and Q10 were warmly greeted by customers. But now it seems that BlackBerry still has to cover a long way before it will becomes the third best smartphone manufacturer in the world.
This could also be judged from the fact that numerous research firms like Citi, Jefferies, Hudson Square Research, Deutsche Bank, Needham, Credit Suisse and Morgan Stanley have downgraded the stock price of BlackBerry after its second quarter results. An analyst from Morgan Stanely told the Wall Street Journal that, “We fear enterprise and consumer opinion of BB10 could have been materially harmed by Friday’s earnings, which if left unaddressed, could negatively influence the actual performance of the business.”
In spite of this, BlackBerry has made it known that it will stick with the current plan, as talking to Reuters chief executive officer of Thorsten Heins said that, “We stay the course. This is the course that management has created and it is course that the board has accepted. This is a year of investment. We have managed our cash carefully and prudently, and we now have the funds to invest, so this is the ‘create the future’ year.”
Source: TechVibes
Photo: TheVerge