Research In Motion Ltd (BBRY) Suffers a Black Eye Following Q1 Results

A comeback for Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) looks distant. In fact, Q1 results leave many questioning if a comeback is even possible.

Shares sank nearly 28% after Q1 earnings left Wall Street disappointed.

At first blush, the report didn’t look too bad. But, it was the company’s surprising loss and uninspiring outlook that cast a dark cloud over shares.

The Canadian smartphone marker posted revenue of $3.1 billion, a 15% increase from the previous quarter and up 9% when compared to the same quarter a year ago. Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) also trimmed losses to $84 million from $510 million during the period in fiscal 2013. But, analysts had been looking for a profit.

Some 6.7 million smartphones were shipped during the quarter, with 40% (or about 2.7 million) of those being for the new souped-up Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) 10 devices.

Shareholders have been hanging on to the stock in hopes the BB10 will be the company’s savior. For now, they must remain on hold.

“We are still in the early stages of the launch, but already, the BlackBerry 10 platform and Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) Enterprise Service 10 are providing themselves to customers to be very secure, flexible and dynamic mobile computing solutions,” BlackBerry President and CEO Thorsten Heins said in a statement.

Only on the market for five months, Heins stressed it was too early to comment on BB10’s reception, and he stressed on a conference call, “We don’t plan to run the company with a short-term device only strategy.”

A maturing and cooling smartphone market

BlackBerry 10’s success is crucial for the company’s survival. But, many headwinds stand in the way. Market bears maintain the smartphone market has matured and is now saturated.

Indeed, even leaders like Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Google, and Samsung are feeling the pain.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares have fallen from a 52-week peak of $705.07 to $385.10 on concerns of slowing iPhone sales both here and abroad. Sales have notably shrunk in the explosive Chinese market. Analysts report iPhone orders for Q3 and Q4 in the U.S. have been slashed, while sales in China are dropping at a very fast clip.

“We believe iPhone 5 (and) 4S sales in China have dropped much faster in Q2 from Q1 than expected,” Jun Zhang, a partner at Wedge Partners wrote this month. Sales of the iPhone 5 and the iPhone 4S had been around 35,000 a day and have fallen 10,000 to 12,000 units a day, a 70% decline quarter-over-quarter, Zhang explained.