BlackBerry’s fruit falls despite healthy predictions

After launching its new BlackBerry 10 series to take on the dominant players in the smartphone market, investors are unimpressed, with the company’s shares dropping 20%. As Reuters reports, this came after the German mobile developer released its most recent quarterly financial report today.

BlackBerry launched two phones at the beginning of this year — the Z10 fancy pants touch screen and the Q10. The latter is sans touch screen but has one of those BlackBerry QWERTY keyboards many die-hard fans so firmly love.

Well, apparently these two guys couldn’t face up to the challenge of keeping up with the iPhone and Android competition these days. The company today revealed a massive US$169-million loss in its first quarter while Wall Street predictions ware aiming at a US$25-million operating profit.

BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins took up the mantle last year during a time the company’s devices were left out in the cold in the midst after touch screen smartphones have taken over the markets. He was meant to take on Apple and Samsung when he announced the Z10– BlackBerry’s first proper attempt at competing head on with this market of touch screen internet phones.

The BlackBerry 10 duo doesn’t seem to be holding fort though. Eight-million of these smartphones were expected to be shipped, only 6.8-million made it.

The company’s shares dropped 20% to US$11.58 in the US. BlackBerry is trying to reassure skittish shareholders however, pointing out the late US market entry of the Z10 and Q10. According to Reuters, the Z10 only hit the American stores in March. The Q10, on the other hand, reached the United States after the end of BlackBerry’s fiscal first quarter. So those numbers still need to bring in the revenue.

Surprisingly, on the tablet side of things, BlackBerry’s Playbook is continuing to sell as 100 000 were shipped in the quarter. These tidings might change though as CEO Thorsten Heins has been noted for saying that “tablets themselves are not a good business model,” and that “in five years [we] don’t think there’ll be a reason to have a tablet anymore.”

BlackBerry’s going to try and tough it out in the trenches then it seems. Heins said: “Over the next three quarters, we will be increasing our investments to support the rollout of new products and services 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.”