NEW YORK: Research In Motion Ltd.’s Patrick Spence resigned as head of global sales, marking the latest management change for the struggling maker of BlackBerry smartphones.
Spence is taking a job in a different industry following 14 years at RIM, said Rebecca Freiburger, a spokeswoman for the Waterloo, Ontario-based company.
The sales team will report to Kristian Tear, RIM’s new operating chief, who will start this summer, Freiburger said in an e-mail. Until then, the division will report directly to Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Heins.
Heins, who took over in January, is grappling with a sales slump and declining stock price, making it harder to attract and retain talent. As part of his turnaround effort, he named Tear, a former Sony Corp. executive, to the operating job earlier this month. Heins also brought in an ex-LightSquared Inc. manager, Frank Boulben, as head of marketing.
The company is banking on the new BlackBerry 10 operating system to resurrect its smartphone lineup, which has lost market share to Apple Inc.’s iPhone and Google Inc.’s Android. RIM’s sales tumbled 25% last quarter, with US revenue plummeting more than 5%.
RIM’s share of US smartphone subscribers shrank to 12% in the period, making it a distant third in the industry, according to ComScore Inc. Android accounted for 51% of the market, while the iPhone had 31%. (Bloomberg/T05)
Showing 0 - 0 of 0 comments