BlackBerry Reports 1 Million BlackBerry 10 Sales
BlackBerry managed to earn a profit of $94 million in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2013, and reported sales of roughly 1 million BlackBerry 10 devices. That’s good news for the beleaguered company, which is betting its future on the new BlackBerry 10 operating system. Although 1 million isn’t a groundbreaking number—Apple’s iPhone 5 sold five million units in its first weekend—it’s a sign that the BlackBerry Z10 smartphone has managed to gain some traction with users around the world. BlackBerry (known until recently as Research In Motion) managed to sell 6 million BlackBerry smartphones overall, along with approximately 370,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets. Once the dominant smartphone among enterprises and government agencies, BlackBerry watched its market-share crumble in the face of fierce competition from Android and Apple’s iOS, especially as more companies opted for “Bring Your Own Device” policies. In an attempt to hit the reset button, the company built BlackBerry 10, which abandons the longtime BlackBerry user interface (centered on grids of icons) in favor of one built on the same QNX technology that powers the PlayBook tablet. The BlackBerry 10 home-screen offers “live tiles” that dynamically refresh with updated information. It also includes features such as a revamped keyboard, various privacy and security upgrades, and an updated version of BlackBerry Messenger. BlackBerry’s quarterly revenues totaled $2.7 billion. In a somewhat worrying sign, the BlackBerry subscriber base shrunk to 76 million, down 3 million from the previous quarter. The best-case scenario for BlackBerry is that, as more BlackBerry 10 devices enter the market in coming months (including ones with a physical keyboard, prized by many old-school BlackBerry subscribers), that subscriber base will stabilize or even begin to climb again. In a research note released before BlackBerry announced its quarterly results, Ovum analyst Jan Dawson suggested that “several factors” had worked against the company’s sales numbers. “Firstly, [BlackBerry Z10] was only on sale for about a month before the end of the quarter, and critically didn’t launch in the US until several weeks later,” he wrote. “Secondly, the Q10, which has the classic BlackBerry hardware keyboard, won’t go on sale for some time still, so many of the prime candidates for buying a BlackBerry 10 device will be waiting for that.” In light of that, he concluded, “even though many observers will see this quarter’s performance as a referendum on BlackBerry 10, they should instead wait for the next quarter’s results, which will be a much better indicator of the long-term success or failure of the platform.”