BlackBerry Posts $94 Million Profit In Q4 2013, Founder Leaving Company

BlackBerry released its quarterly earnings for its Q4 2013 fiscal quarter, and the company brought in $2.7 billion in revenue, with $94 million of that being cold-hard profit. This is up from $14 million during the last quarter. Furthermore, BlackBerry founder Mike Lazaridis — who was the company's co-CEO until January 2012 — has announced that he's leaving the company.

BlackBerry's profit this quarter is quite surprising, but the company ended up losing three million subscribers over a three month period, which is now down to 76 million subscribers globally, compared to 79 million subscribers during the previous quarter and 80 million users the quarter before that.

BlackBerry ended up selling six million devices during its Q4 2013 quarter, with one million of those being BlackBerry 10 devices (a.k.a. the BlackBerry Z10). BlackBerry's Q4 2013 ended on March 2 of this year, so the BlackBerry Z10 sales don't account for the US and Canada launches of the new phone, so we should be seeing a healthy dose of Z10 sales during the company's next earnings report in three months.

During the company's earnings call, CEO Thorsten Heins says that BlackBerry's newest QWERTY device, the Q10, will be releasing sometime next month. As for Lazaridis, he will be stepping down from his current position of Vice Chair of the Board on May 1, and will be leaving the company entirely to focus on his new Quantum Valley Investments venture.