BlackBerry results paint a bleak future for its phones

From CNET: The clock is ticking on BlackBerry's phone business, and it looks like time is almost up.

BlackBerry CEO John Chen has repeatedly vowed to exit the phone business if it continued to be unprofitable. If Chen sticks to his word, BlackBerry phones may soon be a thing of the past. The company's numbers only continue to disappoint.

The Canadian company sold just 500,000 phones in the first fiscal quarter, down from 600,000 in the prior quarter and from 700,000 in the quarter before that. It doesn't take a mathematician to chart the trajectory.

The numbers, which came out during a mixed bag of earnings on Thursday, are just the latest sign that the age of BlackBerry phones is coming to a close. The company had hoped to rejuvenate sales by partnering with Google to use its Android software for its Priv phone. But phone sales continue to sink, with AT&T openly calling out the disappointing performance and Sprint yet to carry the Priv despite an earlier commitment.

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