Summary RIM said it sold 6.8 million phones overall versus 7.8 million last year.
TORONTO (AP) - Shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion plunged nearly 30 percent Friday after the company posted a loss and warned of future losses despite releasing its make-or-break new smartphones this year.
RIM also announced that it will stop developing new versions its slow-selling tablet computer called the Playbook.
Analysts were looking for insight into how phones running RIM s new Blackberry 10 operating system are selling. It wasn t good.
RIM said it sold 6.8 million phones overall versus 7.8 million last year. That includes older models. In wasn t until well into a conference call with analysts that RIM announced that 2.7 million of the devices sold in the quarter were Blackberry 10 models.
RIM s new Blackberry 10 operating system is widely seen as critical to the company s comeback. But the company said it anticipates it will generate an operating loss in the second quarter too.
Mike Walkley, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity, said it s clear the new operating system has not turned the company around.
Chief Executive Thorsten Heins said on a conference call with analysts that the "transition takes time" and noted things are better compared to last year when "we were told the company was finished."
Shares of Research in Motion Ltd. dropped $3.93, or 27 percent, to $10.30 in morning trading Friday.
The BlackBerry, introduced in 1999, was once the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people. But it lost its cachet not long after Apple released the first iPhone in 2007. Apple s device reset expectations for what a smartphone can do.
RIM promised to catch up while developing new a software system called BlackBerry 10, which uses technology it got through its 2010 purchase of QNX Software Systems. But the company took more than two years to unveil new phones that were redesigned for the multimedia, Internet browsing and apps experience that customers now demand. During that time, RIM cut more than 5,000 jobs and saw shareholder wealth of more than $70 billion vanish.
New phones running the BlackBerry 10 software began selling around the world this year and have received positive reviews. Sales results and RIM s projections, however, show they are not selling well.
The Canadian company said it lost $84 million, or 16 cents a share, in the three months ended June 1 on revenue of $3.1 billion. It lost $518 million, or 99 cents per share, on revenue of $2.8 billion a year ago.
Analysts expected RIM to earn 5 cents a share on revenue of $3.37 billion.
RIM also said it anticipates it will generate an operating loss in the second quarter. Heins noted the highly competitive smartphone market makes it difficult to estimate revenue and levels of profitability.
Heins also announced on the call that he has halted further development of RIM s failed tablet offering, the Playbook. The Playbook has not sold well.
Colin Gillis, an analyst at BGC Partners, said it s tough for RIM because it s hard to make money on handsets now.
Gillis said things look bleaker for the company and it s going to continue to be a struggle. Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek said the high end global smartphone market is saturated and brutally completive.
RIM has unveiled a lower-cost BlackBerry aimed at consumers in emerging markets, but hasn t said if the device will be available in North America.
Misek was expecting the company to sell 4 million BlackBerry 10 phones. He said the sale of 2.7 million new BlackBerry 10 phones was the most disappointing news Friday.
