[kenorian]

After a brief period of optimism, it seems that financial analysts are once again predicting that BlackBerry (BBRY) is in very big trouble. Per Forbes, Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette has released a research note this week estimating that BlackBerry Z10 shipments will total 275,000 to...


BlackBerry Z10 sales projections: lower than expected | BGR

[richardat]

After a brief period of optimism, it seems that financial analysts are once again predicting that BlackBerry (BBRY) is in very big trouble. Per Forbes, Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette has released a research note this week estimating that BlackBerry Z10 shipments will total 275,000 to...


BlackBerry Z10 sales projections: lower than expected | BGR

The line aptly sums up my view on BB. A bit more pessimistic though. He thinks they will come in at about 1/4 or 1/3 sales necessary for profit....I thought/think it will be closer than that. I just don't think even reaching proft means much....survival to fight in the next iteration - which certainly beats the alternative, but is hardly "success".

[Bbnivende]

I don't think they can be profitable through selling phones and Apps through BB world. They need broader alliances on the content side. There is a world of opportunity in the BRIC countries but BB hasn't grabbed it.

[dbmalloy]

Already a thread about this... suggest the OP do a bit more homework... BGR is nototious ant-BB as are many other tech sites..... The same day Jefferies and today Goldman Sachs contidicted the BGR reprort saying they are optimistic on BB quarter.... Right now there are many investors shorting BB stock meaning they want the stock price to drop because then they make money.... this is where all these negative articles start.. in the end it is the upcoming quarrterly report that will tell the tail not analysts so I tend to ignore the chatter so to speak... the thing to remember is that BB does not have to sell tremendous amounts of devices to be profitable.... besides handsets they have network business as well which can also generate additional income....

[glamrlama]

I think Faucette may have "Fog of War" enabled on his smartphone combat simulator. I wonder how well his profitability "line of sight" app is selling on iTunes? For a company that is so DEAD, so UNCOOL, and so LATE, BBRY seems to have a very significant number of people trying to protect me buying the VERY LATEST, VERY COOLEST, available RIGHT NOW BBRY devices. Why are other people so concerned about my device choice?

[sleepngbear]

Both Faucette and Forbes are notoriously and steadfastly bearish on BlackBerry, and that's putting it mildly. No matter what the total landscape looks like, they'll pick some bit of negative news and spin it into the death of the company. I'm done reading any more of Forbes' trash-'analysis'; and since they're the only ones who give Faucette any credence, I guess that means I'm done reading his drivel as well.

[anon(5624621)]

As with all of these projections (positive and negative), it's all speculation until the numbers come out.

[anon(153966)]

Ladies and Gentlemen, please try stay on topic and not start personal attacks. If you wish to discuss something directly with another member, please PM them directly.

Thanks

Ivan

[richardat]

Ladies and Gentlemen, please try stay on topic and not start personal attacks. If you wish to discuss something directly with another member, please PM them directly.

Thanks

Ivan

Wow. Thanks.....irony....I was just asking/inviting the OP to do that. OP if sincere, feel free to do so.

[Thunderbuck]

The line aptly sums up my view on BB. A bit more pessimistic though. He thinks they will come in at about 1/4 or 1/3 sales necessary for profit....I thought/think it will be closer than that. I just don't think even reaching proft means much....survival to fight in the next iteration - which certainly beats the alternative, but is hardly "success".

What prompts your pessimism?

[katiepea]

even if these numbers are 50% low, it's still pretty bad. it seems as though blackberry will not come close to meeting their expectations for profit. we sort of knew that would be the case though. many threads on this topic have been around for a while. blackberry has years of struggle ahead to become sustainable. anyone thinking the z10 was going to erase years of marketshare loss was fooling themselves.

[ashleegabriel]

Wow. Thanks.....irony....I was just asking/inviting the OP to do that. OP if sincere, feel free to do so.

OP, to feel free and do what ??? Who is OP....

[richardat]

OP, to feel free and do what ??? Who is OP....

LOL. You can also PM me if you like.

[richardat]

What prompts your pessimism?

Thunder.....hmm.....if you're interested in my pessimism, see post in Misek thread. Plenty of material to begin discussion there, though, please, only do so if you are sincerely interested. In the post here, I was saying [I]Faucette/I] is more pessimistic than I am. I think it's quite possible they can reach the more optimistic forecasts here....or at least approach them. What I might say is "no line of sight to long-term profitability/competitiveness".

[Stephen Green]

Find such predictions difficult when BlackBerry is still rolling out units to various markets. Let's wait a month or two.


Using Z10 posting on CB10

[Thunderbuck]

Thunder.....hmm.....if you're interested in my pessimism, see post in Misek thread. Plenty of material to begin discussion there, though, please, only do so if you are sincerely interested. In the post here, I was saying [I]Faucette/I] is more pessimistic than I am. I think it's quite possible they can reach the more optimistic forecasts here....or at least approach them. What I might say is "no line of sight to long-term profitability/competitiveness".

They have a competitive product, and there seems to be significant interest. How does that equate to "no line of sight to long-term profitability/competitiveness"? Especially when it completely ignores BB's potential as an MDM play?

[marlowe9810]

They have a competitive product, and there seems to be significant interest. How does that equate to "no line of sight to long-term profitability/competitiveness"? Especially when it completely ignores BB's potential as an MDM play?

I'd have to agree with you there Thunder. The MDM revenue potential is quite substantial. Misek speaks to this in his interview with bloomberg. Also I saw Sith Apprentice's latest update from the Blackberry Experience Forum suggests that there is considerable interest in BB's MDM solution. Plus taking into account an leaner BB, profitability might actually come sooner.

[marlowe9810]

This is Sith Apprentice's updates:


" Originally Posted by Sith_Apprentice
In UK BB10 launch selling more than galaxy s3 did at its launch. Over 30% in the UK coming from another platform.

Posted via CB10

Originally Posted by Sith_Apprentice
One last fact, 2300 US companies already in the BES 10 ready program, 41% of the US base.

Posted via CB10

Originally Posted by Sith_Apprentice
3500 companies participating in BlackBerry ready program in North America.

Posted via CB10"

[richardat]

They have a competitive product, and there seems to be significant interest. How does that equate to "no line of sight to long-term profitability/competitiveness"? Especially when it completely ignores BB's potential as an MDM play?

Again....read my post. I don't even know how to begin answering what you're saying here....if your reasoning is: competitive product (a questionable assumption, and of course, would require you to define "competitive") = line of sight to profitability......um...c'mon. That doesn't even make sense....how can we even begin to discuss something that vague. I think we should start with the post I made.....on these vague terms....I guess you could say that I do not think they are going to be competitive with the big players, but again, let's not start down such a fuzzy verbal road.

[Zarpan]

Faucette is just one analyst with an opinion. The range of sales estimates and profit margins for BB10 puts the forecast for FY14 from anywhere from a big loss to a large profit.

People who are pessimistic about BlackBerry tend to gravitate to the lower estimates to support their opinions, while those that are optimistic gravitate to the higher estimates. And nobody really knows who is going to be right yet.

even if these numbers are 50% low, it's still pretty bad. it seems as though blackberry will not come close to meeting their expectations for profit. we sort of knew that would be the case though. many threads on this topic have been around for a while. blackberry has years of struggle ahead to become sustainable. anyone thinking the z10 was going to erase years of marketshare loss was fooling themselves.

[katiepea]

This is Sith Apprentice's updates:


" Originally Posted by Sith_Apprentice
In UK BB10 launch selling more than galaxy s3 did at its launch. Over 30% in the UK coming from another platform.

Posted via CB10

Originally Posted by Sith_Apprentice
One last fact, 2300 US companies already in the BES 10 ready program, 41% of the US base.

Posted via CB10

Originally Posted by Sith_Apprentice
3500 companies participating in BlackBerry ready program in North America.

Posted via CB10"

considering 20 million s3's were sold within the first 100 days, 9 million of those being preorders, with analysts saying bb10 will likely come in at 275k units low, 500k 1 million high estimates, someone is clearly full of **** here on the numbers. the link is to BGR talking about goldman keeping blackberry as a buy and raising the valuation. goldman is probably closest IMO to reality for these estimates. i would say they'll get 1 million unit sales before the US numbers come in. that being said, i think the US will be the worst sales numbers they'll see. that's just my guess. i agree with goldman i think there is reason to beleive a rebound is coming, but it will be long and slow. it's my way of thinking that the US delayed launch is a really bad thing. perhaps only temporarily but google trends is a decent tool to use to scale worldwide interest in products, the trends typically follow along the same lines as sales.

as far as widespread interest in the z10, it seems to be waining if not entirely plummeting. especially in the US. http://www.google.com/trends/explore...y%203-m&cmpt=q

the trends model is more interesting when compared to a phone model that has only sold 1 million units (nexus 4) compared to a yet to be officially announced samsung galaxy s4 model and also the samsung galaxy s3 which is nearly a year old and sold well over 20 million units in the first 100 days.
http://www.google.com/trends/explore...y%203-m&cmpt=q

**note that i've turned on "last 90 days" as timeframe

[Zarpan]

I've posted this in other threads too, but 2.5-3 million BB10 units per quarter should lead to breakeven For you to believe that there is no line of sight to profitability, your expectations (like Faucette's) would need to be well short of that.

Not surprisingly analysts who were bearish on BlackBerry before launch have done channel checks and come up with numbers like 1.5 million per quarter, while those who were bullish come up with channel checks that suggest 4 million units per quarter. Checks and calculations can be manipulated to produce a desired result, so I wouldn't put much stock in any of the analyst forecasts.

[RubberChicken76]

even if these numbers are 50% low, it's still pretty bad. it seems as though blackberry will not come close to meeting their expectations for profit.

Their expectations or yours? I'm going to say the same thing I keep saying: People keep leaping to conclusions about what is 'bad' or 'good' without all the variables.

Does anyone here have access to BlackBerry's internal sales targets to compare how the sellthrough is trending relative to to their sales targets? Does anyone have access to their 'profitability plan' to know how we are tracking relative to that? Does anyone have data on how the phone is physically selling relative to other device launches from ... say HTC, LG, Sony, Huwei? Or relative to other BlackBerrys.

Not saying you couldn't be right ... just that we don't have all the data we need to measure against. The Q4 results will provide more detail, the Q1 will be even better for detail.

As for the Galaxy example, not really sure why people think it needs to outsell the Galaxy or iPhone to be considered a success. There are hundreds of smartphones not named Galaxy and iPhone ...

[Zarpan]

considering 20 million s3's were sold within the first 100 days, 9 million of those being preorders, with analysts saying bb10 will likely come in at 275k units low, 500k 1 million high estimates, someone is clearly full of **** here on the numbers. the link is to BGR talking about goldman keeping blackberry as a buy and raising the valuation. goldman is probably closest IMO to reality for these estimates. i would say they'll get 1 million unit sales before the US numbers come in. that being said, i think the US will be the worst sales numbers they'll see. that's just my guess. i agree with goldman i think there is reason to beleive a rebound is coming, but it will be long and slow.

I don't have UK specific S3 launch numbers, so I can't comment on whether Sith_Apprentice's claim is plausible. However, you're using an invalid comparison of global launch numbers for the S3 as a comparison with the Z10, which has been only been launched in a few countries.

[RubberChicken76]

I've posted this in other threads too, but 2.5-3 million BB10 units per quarter should lead to breakeven

Honestly, the only thing I've believe there is the audited financial reports of BlackBerry. Otherwise, too many moving parts like ASP, marketing costs, R&D, headcount changes, service revenue fluctuations etc.

Checks and calculations can be manipulated to produce a desired result, so I wouldn't put much stock in any of the analyst forecasts.

At the end of the day, they're also guesses. Educated guesses sure, but they do their best estimate based upon the data points they can get (historical, checks etc) along with a bunch of assumptions. There are good analysts and bad analysts that do 'good checks' and 'bad checks'. While educated, they also like to give their personal opinions that aren't always data driven. And most importantly, they have been proven wrong as often as they've been proven right.

BlackBerry maker RIM won’t get BB10 out until March: Analyst | Toronto Star
RIM Won't Live to See 2013, Analyst Says - Mobility - Mobile business
http://in.reuters.com/article/2009/0...56M50320090724

Whether the bears are right in the end or the bulls are, it's really only something that can be answered by BlackBerry. And it hasn't been yet ...