Blackberry has been struggling to stay afloat, but the company didn’t bode too well this quarter, according to today’s earning report (fiscal Q1, 2014). The first quarter results revealed some highs and lows; revenue went up 15 percent from last quarter, garnering $3.1 billion (a 9 percent increase as compared to last year) and North American revenue is up 30 percent; but most significant was its $84 million loss.

Last year, Blackberry profited $94 million. This $84 million loss is equivalent to 16 cents per share, much lower than last year’s loss of 99 cents per share.

This quarter was particularly important for the wireless communication company because its Z10 Blackberry 10 touch-screen phone was available for the first time throughout the duration of the quarter. With its new product launches being available, expectations were set high.

Blackberry shipped 6.8 million smartphones and 100,000 Playbook tablets. According to Engadget, only 40 percent of those shipments were BB 10 devices, a disappointing figure. Due to “foreign currency restrictions” in Venezuela, revenue in Latin America was affected by $72 million. The revenue breakdown was 71 percent for hardware, 26 percent for service and 3 percent for software and other revenue.

CEO Thorsten Heins remains optimistic about the quarter results despite them being lower than predicted, saying that Blackberry will continue to focus on the global rollout of the Z10.

“We are still in the early stages of this launch, but already, the BlackBerry 10 platform and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 are proving themselves to customers to be very secure, flexible and dynamic mobile computing solutions,” he said. “Over the next three quarters, we will be increasing our investments to support the roll out of new products and services, and to demonstrate that BlackBerry has established itself as a leading and vibrant player in next generation mobile computing solutions for both consumer and enterprise customers.”

There will be several efforts in place to ensure that Blackberry continues to make a profit in the highly competitive smartphone market.  The company also plans to roll out its messenger service to other platforms via an app that will be available for iPhone and Android devices this summer.

“We will continue to focus on our financial strength and believe we are well positioned to continue to invest in our platform and compete in a highly competitive market,” he said in a conference call, according to Montreal Gazette.