BlackBerry earnings show 45% revenue drop, £600m loss

The results are in, and things are about as bad as we were expecting for BlackBerry. The Canadian company has officially announced its second-quarter earnings.

It's lost $965 million (£598 million), which is only just shy of the $1 billion loss it was expecting. Those 4,500 jobs will still be cut, however. It's not a fun time to work at BlackBerry.

The company's $1.6 billion (£992 million) revenue was 45 per cent down from the same period a year ago, and 49 per cent down on the last three months. It shipped 3.7 million smart phones, but not even half of them ran BlackBerry 10, the company's latest operating system.

"We are very disappointed with our operational and financial results this quarter and have announced a series of major changes to address the competitive hardware environment and our cost structure," CEO Thorsten Heins said in a statement. He continued, "We understand how some of the activities we are going through create uncertainty, but we remain a financially strong company with $2.6 billion in cash and no debt.

"We are focussed on our targeted markets, and are committed to completing our transition quickly in order to establish a more focussed and efficient company."

BlackBerry will cut its handset portfolio back to just four devices. It'll also "refocus our offering on our end-to-end solution of hardware, software and services for enterprises and the productive, professional end user."

But it insists it's not leaving the high street. 

Canadian investment company Fairfax Financial Holdings put in a $4.7 billion buyout offer this week. Which is quite a fall from grace, when you consider just five years ago BlackBerry was worth $83 billion. Its free messaging app BBM was supposed to launch on Android and iOS last weekend, but it's been delayed until further notice.

Do you think BlackBerry should focus on business bods? Or is there still room for its products on shop shelves? Let me know in the comments, or on our Facebook page.