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Financial: BlackBerry blight
(Guardian (UK) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) BlackBerry may have sold only about 300,000 of its new Z10 smartphones with its make-or-break BB10 software by the end of its financial year on 2 March, analysts say - a far cry from estimates of up to 1.75m, and leaving the company at risk of a fifth consecutive loss-making quarter.
Investment banks Cannacord Genuity and Pacific Crest slashed their estimates for handsets sold through retailers. "There is no line of sight to profitability; we remain sellers of [shares in] BlackBerry," wrote Pacific Crest's analyst.
"Any benefit from the Z10 is likely to be at least partly offset by cannibalisation of [the high-end BlackBerry] Bold 9900 sales, which our checks indicate have declined materially since the Z10's launch." Pacific Crest reckons between 1m and 1.5m Z10 units will be shipped to retailers by the end of the fiscal year, compared to expectations of 3 to 4m units. With BlackBerry's quarterly handset shipments halving over the past year, from 14.1m in the quarter to November 2011 to just 6.9m in the quarter to November 2012, the company sorely needs a hit with the new BB10 handsets. The Z10 is the first of two; a keyboard-equipped Q10 is scheduled for launch later this year.
Part of the reason for the lower sales for the Z10 is that it was only released in a few countries - and crucially is not for sale in the US until mid-March.
BlackBerry did not comment.
(c) 2013 Guardian Newspapers Limited.
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