Smartphone maker BlackBerry hasn’t had the best of news lately. Although they announced that Canadian holding Fairfax Financial signed an option to possibly take the company private, the bad news keeps coming in. The latest bad news for BlackBerry is that cellphone carrier T-Mobile is dropping BlackBerry 10 devices from their stores.
According to engadget.com:
“T-Mobile will no longer sell BlackBerry devices in its brick-and-mortar stores. We’d heard as much earlier this month when rumblings hit the Crackberry forums, but additional confirmation came today, with one T-Mobile employee reporting: ‘My manager told me…that all BlackBerry 10 devices will now only be available via direct ship.’
“It’s hardly a surprise that the carrier would be pulling the plug — lackluster sales of BB10 devices contributed to an expected net operating loss of more than $950 million in Q2. Still, one additional nail in the coffin’s gotta hurt for the (former) Canadian phone maker.”
The news comes at a time when the company’s BlackBerry 10 devices, which were supposed to save the company, have had lackluster sales this year. BlackBerry recently laid off 40 percent of its workers after taking a near $1 billion loss on unsold devices.
According to reuters.com:
“BlackBerry, which put itself on the block in August, on Monday accepted a tentative $9 a share offer from a mostly Canadian consortium led by domestic insurer Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd, BlackBerry’s biggest shareholder with a 10 percent stake.
“BlackBerry says its second-quarter results will feature slumping sales, a big operating loss and hefty job cuts. It reports results on Friday, but canceled plans for a conference call with investors because of the Fairfax bid.”
BlackBerry’s deal with Fairfax Financial is tentative, but they are hopeful it can be get done because the stock keeps falling. In the wake of everything that is taking place around the company, BlackBerry decided to cancel its upcoming earnings call.
As reported by techcrunch.com:
“BlackBerry has canceled its second-quarter earnings call, which was scheduled to take place along with the release of its financial results on Friday. The company said the cancellation was because of the letter of intent to be acquired by Fairfax Financial Holdings it signed earlier this week. Fairfax agreed to pay $4.7 billion for the beleaguered phone maker.”
BlackBerry needs to do something. T-mobile maybe the only company to pull them so far, but it wouldn’t be out of the question to see Verizon and AT&T following suit if the company continues this downward spiral.
Further details about its second-quarter results will be released when BlackBerry files financial statements next week.
