Even die-hard BlackBerry fans are beginning to waver after the Canadian smartphone maker disclosed disappointing demand for a touch-screen device viewed as critical to attracting younger users.
BlackBerry shares plunged 28 percent on June 28, the biggest decline since 2000, after the company reported profit and phone shipments that missed analysts’ estimates and revenue hurt in part by Venezuela’s currency controls. The culprit: a shortfall in sales of the flagship Z10 handset, a new model designed to go head-to-head against Apple Inc.’s iPhone and devices using Google Inc.’s Android.
The stumble risks undermining BlackBerry’s credibility with remaining supporters among consumers, analysts and corporate customers. Maynard Um of Wells Fargo Securities LLC, one of nine analysts left who had considered BlackBerry a buy, cut his rating to hold. The slump also raises the possibility more developers may avoid the platform, following the path of app-maker Ideomed Inc., whose marketing chief describes BlackBerry as sliding toward MySpace-style irrelevance.
“This is about as bad as it gets,” said Brian Blair, an analyst at Wedge Partners LLC in New York. “We got a really good look at the Z10 demand and it’s a dud by any metric.”
BlackBerry is faltering in its bid to expand beyond phones that feature a physical keyboard, still popular among business customers — though not as sought-after as the iPhone or devices running Android.
BlackBerry’s worldwide subscriber base slipped to 72 million last quarter, from 76 million and 79 million in the preceding quarters, and the company has said it will no longer even disclose a user tally.
“Turnarounds in technology are tough,” said Kevin Stadtler, president of Fort Worth, Texas-based Stadtler Capital Management, which owns about 45,000 BlackBerry shares, down from 80,000 earlier this year. “The Z10 has not caught fire.”
The Z10 is central to BlackBerry’s attempt to branch out beyond phones boasting a physical “qwerty” keyboard.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based company last quarter shipped 2.7 million BlackBerry 10 devices, primarily its flagship Z10, about 25 percent fewer than analysts were expecting.
While the new Q10 is expected to sell well with the BlackBerry faithful who crave its physical keyboard, it may be too little, too late to appease impatient investors, said Blair, the Wedge Partners analyst.