BlackBerry hits the ground

BlackBerry's "solid ground" just got shakier.The company on Friday posted a loss in its fiscal first quarter, whereas analysts had projected at profit. Compounding the negativity was the eventual disclosure that it only sold 2.7 million BlackBerry 10 devices in the quarter and saw its subscriber base fall by 4 million to 72 million.It was a bad day for BlackBerry all around. The surprising and disappointing numbers underscore the continued challenges the company faces as it continues its slow efforts for a recovery. But with losses expected to continue piling up, some are wondering if a comeback is even possible. With a market dominated by Apple and Samsung, BlackBerry may be badly outgunned.What's worse is that the situation doesn't look like it will be improving for a while. BlackBerry warned it will post another loss in the current quarter and said it will continue to invest in products and services over the next three quarters, suggesting that the company will remain in the red for another year. Throughout it all, BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins asked for more time and a longer-term view from analysts and industry observers who seemed short on patience.Wall Street agreed with his assessment. BlackBerry lost more than a quarter of its market value, falling 25.5 percent to $10.69 in early trading this morning.The sentiment is far different from just a month ago, when Heins declared during its annual developer conference that the company had gotten back some of its groove."It hasn't been that easy, and there's still a lot of work to do, but man, have we reached solid ground with this company," Heins said during his keynote address at BlackBerry Live in May. At the time, he was met with thunderous applause from the BlackBerry faithful.Today, Heins endured a string of painful questions ranging from his thoughts on the disappointing BlackBerry 10 sales to how much time the board had given him before he had to ditch his current plans.In his response, Heins sought patience from the investment community, saying that the company wasn't done launching products and noted that they each required significant marketing investment to stand out in a competitive market. He said fiscal 2014 (its current fiscal year) marks a period of investment, which will set the company up for growth next year."It's a new experience, so this takes a bit of time, it takes some investment," he said.Heins, however, demurred on many of the more pointed questions, such as his thoughts on what many regard as disappointing unit sales."We're in the middle of it, so it's really too early to say," he said. "You've got to be on your tippy toe all the time, and that's what we're doing."The 2.7 million BlackBerry 10 devices shipped in the quarter only represented 40 percent of total device sales, which means its older BlackBerry 7 devices still outsold its newer, more profitable product line. The company also didn't break out how well the BlackBerry Z10 did relative to theQ10, which just went on sale in many markets this month.The numbers, which represent the first full quarter of sales of its BlackBerry 10 devices, have some wondering whether the company can keep up the momentum and excitement it managed to generate after the launch. The stock has been choppy in recent months, but remain markedly above the January levels as investors took a wait-and-see approach and erred on the optimistic side.But increasingly, some are concerned that enthusiasm and interest for the devices have waned. BlackBerry opted to launch first with the BlackBerry Z10 to prove that it could compete in the full-touch-screen category. But in doing so, it may have hurt the momentum it could have better sustained had it gone out with the Q10, which is what most BlackBerry fans had been clamoring for.Perhaps as a reaction to the disappointment, Heins re-emphasized BlackBerry's goal of moving beyond just being a simple device maker, touting the BB10 platform's potential, as well as its services and data network business.But if the company's core BlackBerry 10 smartphones start to falter, those ambitious plans could just end up being pipe dreams. Alarm bells are ringing in Ontario, following worrying 2013 figures for BlackBerry.The Canadian smartphone manufacturer's shares fell by 28 per cent on Friday - its most dramatic loss since 2000 - as it failed to hit its sales and profit targets for the quarter ending on 1 June.BlackBerry shipped 6.8 million phones during the three months; around one million fewer than it did in the same period last year. However, BlackBerry did not reveal how many smartphones running the BB10 operating system were sold during the quarter.The company has announced losses of $84 million (£55 million), which is not quite as bad as the $518 million deficit it endured in the same quarter last year.Revenue rose to £3.1 billion from the $2.8 billion recorded a year ago.Analysts had been anticipating this quarter's results particularly, since they correspond with the Z10's first full quarter on the shelves in the US.Despite the doom and gloom, BlackBerry boss Thorstein Heins remains confident in his products, and believes that the poor financial results show that BlackBerry's transition period is still ongoing."We are still in the early stages of this launch, but already, the BlackBerry 10 platform and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 are proving themselves to customers to be very secure, flexible and dynamic mobile computing solutions."As sales look less promising, it's more difficult for BlackBerry to convince developers to create unique and customized apps for the BlackBerry platform. That is definitely a big risk for the company. Though the device Q10 and Z10 are seamless , there isn’t much left in the BB OS