Blackberry is back in dire straits after a reported $84 million loss for 2013’s first quarter sent the cellphone company’s shares into free-fall and left many stockholders ready to jump ship.

A once-thriving pioneer in the smartphone industry, Blackberry has fallen dramatically upon hard times in recent years. During the same first-quarter financial period for 2012, the company lost more than half a billion dollars ($518 million, to be precise), and while this year’s figures are considerably less dismal than that figure, they are still well below what analysts predicted for the company.

Just last month, it seemed like Blackberry was gearing up to make a dramatic return to prominence: the company was still basking in introduction of a new operating system (BB10) and a new smartphone model (boasting the trademark physical keyboard that Blackberry fanatics have always loved), and the announcement of a new initiative encouraging major U.S. companies to establish privatized mobile networks through Blackberry seemed promising. However, the revamped operating system and the new phones seem to have had a soft impact at best, and whether or not the new business-oriented initiative (dubbed the Blackberry Enterprise Service 10) turns things around will likely not be reflected until the company releases second quarter numbers in September.

Blackberry’s “dramatic return” is still possible, but the company will find themselves facing a hard road after news of their disappointing first quarter broke on Friday. The announcement single-handedly sent Blackberry’s shares into a tailspin: company shares dipped 28% on Friday alone, and their value could continue to drop as negative publicity continues to spread.

Thorstein Heins, Blackberry’s CEO, remained steadfast and optimistic in his support of the BB10 operating system, reasoning that Blackberry is still in the infant stages of a new era..

“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,” Heins said.

But despite the continued support of their CEO, it is now impossible to deny that Blackberry is in serious trouble. The overall smartphone market has only continued to grow as Blackberry’s decline has gotten more and more severe. In the first quarter alone, industry revenues climbed to $3.1 billion, up from $2.8 billion for the fourth quarter of 2012. Of that revenue figure, Blackberry only controls a small percentage of the market. The company reportedly sold 6.8 million units in the first quarter (down from 7.8 million at the same time last year), and both of those figures are low compared to the damage competitors like Apple and Samsung are doing.