BlackBerry made a loss of $4.4 billion (£2.7 billion) last year. The manufacturer sold 1.9 million smartphones to retailers in Q3 of 2013 down from 3.7 million the quarter before. The results are the first under interim chief John Chen.
Mr Chen said: "The most immediate challenge for the company is how to transition the devices operations to a more profitable business model."
Most of the phones shipped over the last quarter were BB7 models, the company made a $2.6 billion (£1.6 billion) loss on BlackBerry 10 devices.
The results have forced the Canadian firm’s director to take a new direction. BlackBerry have now announced it is entering a five-year partnership with Foxconn to develop and manufacture new BlackBerry devices. The deal will focus on creating cheaper handsets for emerging markets like Indonesia.
Chen is also introducing a new organisational structure by dividing the business into four sections. These include Enterprise Services, Messaging, QNX Embedded business and Devices business.
BlackBerry said, "Foxconn's scale and efficiency will let us compete more effectively." Foxconn’s production will take place in Mexico and Indonesia before shipping the budget devices in early 2014.
The only good news from the report was from BBM. BlackBerry Messenger launched for iPhone and Android users earlier this year and since then there have been 40 million more users. This isn’t enough to bring the company through though.
This deal with Foxconn may be BlackBerry’s last chance to ride back to profit.
by jamesp via Featured Articles
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