BlackBerry maker posts loss, shares plunge

Shares of BlackBerry maker Research In Motion plunged nearly 28 percent Friday after the company posted a loss and warned of future losses despite releasing its make-or-break new smartphones this year.

Analysts were looking for insight into how phones running RIM's new BlackBerry 10 operating system are selling. It wasn't good.

RIM said it sold 6.8 million phones overall versus 7.8 million last year. That includes older models. In wasn't until well into a conference call with analysts that RIM announced that 2.7 million of the devices sold in the quarter were BlackBerry 10 models.

RIM's BlackBerry 10 operating system is critical to the company's comeback. New phones running the BlackBerry 10 software began selling around the world this year. The BlackBerry Z10, a touch-screen model and the Q10, which sports a keyboard, have received positive reviews. But sales results and RIM's projections signal that the new BlackBerry 10 phones are not selling well. The company said it anticipates it will generate an operating loss in the second quarter, too.

Chief executive Thorsten Heins said on a conference call with analysts that the "transition takes time" and noted things are better compared to last year when "we were told the company was finished."

Shares of Research in Motion Ltd. dropped $4.02, or 27.8 percent, to $10.46 in Nasdaq trading Friday.

The Canadian company said it lost $84 million, or 16 cents a share, in the three months ended June 1 on revenue of $3.1 billion. It lost $518 million, or 99 cents per share, on revenue of $2.8 billion a year ago.

Analysts expected RIM to earn 5 cents a share on revenue of $3.37 billion.

The number of BlackBerry users in the world also fell by 4 million to 72 million.

The BlackBerry, introduced in 1999, was once the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people. But it lost its cachet not long after Apple released the first iPhone in 2007.