BlackBerry Lays Off More Staff In Response to Fewer Sales

Blackberry has been unable to turn around sales and meet the expectations of analysts and investors, despite the introduction of its Z10 Smartphone. In response to this, the Waterloo, Ontario-based company is reducing its staff numbers.

The Chief Executive of the company, Thorsten Heins, said to shareholders that the company required more time to recover from its losses. The vice president of sales at Blackberry, Richard Piasentin, was sacked last month, and in 2012, around 5,000 employees were let go.

The new BlackBerry devices and the company’s commitment to delivering quality hardware for businesses is highly praised by partners, but they remain uncertain whether this will be enough.

The chief mobility officer of New York-based Breakthrough Technology Group, Michael Wieser, said: “The Z10 is a great device. BlackBerry loyalists seem to really like it. It has been pretty well-received by users who have upgraded from older BlackBerry devices, but I’m not seeing as much success in regaining customers who have already jumped ship to [other smartphone brands].”

The president of Newport, New Jersey-based mobile solution provider Saturn Wireless, Manika Sood, said: “I just started using the newer BlackBerry model. I've switched from a BlackBerry to an iPhone to an Android device, and now I have switched back to BlackBerry. I have found it's designed more for the business world.”

Despite the fact that BlackBerry had formerly established itself in the business market as one of the most secure mobile devices available, it remains uncertain whether the company can rely on the secure business niche to protect its competitors.

Weiser said: “Somehow, they have to try to [make] BlackBerry [appealing] to a younger market. You don't find BlackBerrys in the hands of 20-year-olds. They need to somehow make BlackBerry cool again.” He added that he had been anticipating the launch of the BlackBerry 10 line for a while, and stated: “The devices may be great, but they are about a year or two too late. I don't understand why they dragged their feet so long.”

Sood noted: “Unfortunately, I think BlackBerry has lost a lot of its users who are attracted to jazzier devices. I don't know if they will be able to get them back.”

In terms of enterprise, Wieser stated that BlackBerry once offered its partners more marketing incentives and programs which included large events, attracting scores of resellers and solution providers. He commented: “I think they lost a lot of people when they got rid of those programs. I would love to see them reinstate some kind of loyalty program to their dealers and resellers.”

A BlackBerry report highlights that 6.8 million handsets had been shipped in Q1 of the 2014 fiscal year, which represents a loss of $84 million on handsets alone. Furthermore, 4 million subscribers were lost, which means that the total subscriber number is set at 72 million. Even though the company has totaled $3.1 billion in sales, a fall of 13 cents per market share was noted.

The BlackBerry Q10, the company’s latest smartphone, was unveiled two weeks prior to the Q1 statistics report, and was not enough time to impact the sales for that quarter. (CY) Link