BlackBerry posted dismal fiscal first-quarter results on Friday morning, and the hits kept on coming during the vendor’s earnings call. CEO Thorsten Heins did his best to paint a picture of a company on teetering on the brink of a turnaround, but investors weren’t convinced and BlackBerry shares plummeted more than 20% during Friday’s pre-market session. Among the worst news — aside from the fact that BlackBerry initially failed to disclose BB10 unit sales in the June quarter, which, by the way, was the first full quarter of Z10 sales and the quarter in which the Q10 launched — was word that BlackBerry’s new devices are not bringing in new subscribers as quickly as old ones are fleeing: BlackBerry said during its earnings call that its global subscriber base shrunk to 72 million in fiscal Q1, down 4 million subs sequentially. The company plans to launch the mid-range Q5 in various markets over the next couple of months, but it remains unclear how a mid-range handset will help BlackBerry combat the dirt-cheap Android and Asha phones that are eating into its business in key emerging markets.
BlackBerry lost 4 million subscribers in Q1 despite new launches
Published Jun 28th, 2013 9:00AM EDT
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Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 15 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.
His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.
