Sales of Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry Ltd fell in the last quarter, disappointing Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Heins. Sales in the Americas dropped 56% to USD 610 million. The results came even as Fairfax Financial Holdings already inked a tentative deal to purchase Blackberry together with its partners. Fairfax is the smartphone company's biggest investor.
The deal would allow BlackBerry to tackle its problems away from public scrutiny, according to Bloomberg. "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," he said.
Aside from the falling sales, BlackBerry would also be taking a USD 934 million pretax writedown because of phones left unsold. It had also reduced about one-third of its employees. Restructuring plans would cost the firm USD 72 million. Their recently-released BlackBerry 10 lineup received less than enthusiastic response from consumers prompting the firm to further reduce costs.
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