[Techno-guy]

We'll know for sure on Friday but the Street is not overly optimistic about Blackberry's upcoming financial report. The Priv won't have much impact on the numbers but it will provide guidance about how well (or not) it has sold so far and whether it can have any meaningful impact on Blackberry's attempt to save itself.

The reality is that, notwithstanding some of the immensely optimistic posts here about 2 day stock swings, etc., Blackberry's stock is down 28% for the year. Their total revenue on Friday is expected to come in at $485MM vs. almost $800MM one year ago, which is a very substantial decline of nearly 40% if the estimates are right. I hope they are wrong and that the Priv boosts revenue beyond expectations.

Hoping the Priv is selling well (it really is their last hope) and can provide some stability for Blackberry and we get indications of good sales. However, the financial reality of Blackberry is pretty different than some of the discussions taking place here, with some enthusiasm not necessary attached to Blackberry's financial reality.

Can Priv Revive Upcoming BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) Earnings

[ce71]

We'll know for sure on Friday but the Street is not overly optimistic about Blackberry's upcoming financial report. The Priv won't have much impact on the numbers but it will provide guidance about how well (or not) it has sold so far and whether it can have any meaningful impact on Blackberry's attempt to save itself.

The reality is that, notwithstanding some of the immensely optimistic posts here about 2 day stock swings, etc., Blackberry's stock is down 28% for the year. Their total revenue on Friday is expected to come in at $485MM vs. almost $800MM one year ago, which is a very substantial decline of nearly 40% if the estimates are right. I hope they are wrong and that the Priv boosts revenue beyond expectations.

Hoping the Priv is selling well (it really is their last hope) and can provide some stability for Blackberry and we get indications of good sales. However, the financial reality of Blackberry is pretty different than some of the discussions taking place here, with some enthusiasm not necessary attached to Blackberry's financial reality.

Can Priv Revive Upcoming BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) Earnings

Funny. Makes me think of the BB10 extremists who want the Priv to fail, yet if BlackBerry is to stay in the handset division, and thus, keep BB10 updated, the Priv is their only hope.

[dvarnai]

im really curious how many loyal bb fans they lost vs the amount of ppl they gained from the android market. they lost me for good for sure

[mod9]

The phone hasn't sold in numbers due to Chen being "cautious" in terms of inventory. The numbers are probably disappointing.

Posted via CB10

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Sorry but I don't think Friday well tell us anything about PRIV sales...... unless Chen is generous and will share some actual numbers outside of the official "what gets counted in the quarter" numbers.

One thing that might be interesting is BB10 sales.... might be more than a few enterprise and consumer customers "stocking up" on BB10 devices.

[ce71]

im really curious how many loyal bb fans they lost vs the amount of ppl they gained from the android market. they lost me for good for sure

They were going to lose you anyway.... Once they left the handset market.

Did you get a Priv?

[Xadion]

Stock bumped and settled to the 7-8 range- just as I have said Chen wants it- my theory is all holding true thus far.

A year from now stock will remain relatively unchanged with maybe another "last" chance get out for some @ a 9 or 10$ rally- 1 or at most 2 PY's from now a sale of BlackBerry will happen, in my guess to SAP or subsidiary.

Chen is about 50% done now in a slow and justifiable exit from handsets- he either leaves with nothing to add to the table but existing patents, or the priv was "successful" in giving them some marketable app's to license to other OEM's. Either way, it's going to be gone before the sale- the parent "new" parent company does not want to be the ones seen as chopping it.

What I don't have a guess on is if Chen is aiming to golden parachute during all of this or end up a high ranking higher paid do nothing figurehead VP @ SAP by the time this is all done.


Posted via CB10

[ToniCipriani]

Sorry but I don't think Friday well tell us anything about PRIV sales...... unless Chen is generous and will share some actual numbers outside of the official "what gets counted in the quarter" numbers.

One thing that might be interesting is BB10 sales.... might be more than a few enterprise and consumer customers "stocking up" on BB10 devices.

This. Two things: BlackBerry rarely talks about individual device sales numbers, just everything as a whole, and the numbers would just be up to November. I don't think 3 weeks of (near unadvertised) sales really count as a good stat.

[yohannrjm]

Well, if they had sold a million of them in the first month, they'd be shouting it to the rooftops even before the financial report.

In fact, if it had sold significantly better than the Passport did in the same period after launch, we'd have heard about it too. Their cautious approach to releasing numbers leads me to believe that the sales are unspectacular. This may be due to the fact that they didn't produce many of them, but it does affect how well they'll sell. The average consumer wants to join 'the latest hot thing' - you cannot have a 'hot thing' if people cannot buy them. Luckily there hasn't been any major tech release over the period since the Priv launch to distract the consumer from the Priv.

[dvarnai]

They were going to lose you anyway.... Once they left the handset market.

Did you get a Priv?

i got an iphone 6s plus but i didnt want to start a flame war :P but i must say im quite content.

[Lobwedgephil]

Sorry but I don't think Friday well tell us anything about PRIV sales...... unless Chen is generous and will share some actual numbers outside of the official "what gets counted in the quarter" numbers.

One thing that might be interesting is BB10 sales.... might be more than a few enterprise and consumer customers "stocking up" on BB10 devices.

Yeah I also don't think that we are going to hear much to anything about Priv sales. I bet that they are included in BB10 numbers so you can't break them out and the most you will hear are that sales are meeting or above expectations.

[anon(870071)]

Try to look at a different way like the visionaries you all are! Instead of looking at the numbers, look at the seriously hard attempt to step into an os that is really un-charted for this company. But they did it and did it with huge success. The Priv was the biggest turning point in the history of BlackBerry.

вιaсĸвεггч� ᕵяiv (STV100-3 Rogers Wireless)via CB for Android 5.1.1

[d a elliott]

Well, if they had sold a million of them in the first month, they'd be shouting it to the rooftops even before the financial report.

In fact, if it had sold significantly better than the Passport did in the same period after launch, we'd have heard about it too. Their cautious approach to releasing numbers leads me to believe that the sales are unspectacular. This may be due to the fact that they didn't produce many of them, but it does affect how well they'll sell. The average consumer wants to join 'the latest hot thing' - you cannot have a 'hot thing' if people cannot buy them. Luckily there hasn't been any major tech release over the period since the Priv launch to distract the consumer from the Priv.

Not necessarily. A lot of companies really do withhold their official numbers until quarterly reports / shareholders' meetings. Off of the top of my head, for example, John Legere of T-Mobile always indulged the subscriber numbers at the quarterly, and it was usually guesswork by enthusiasts prior to the official announcement. LG, also, does something more similar to Chen in that they release total sales during the quarterly, and only some time after do you get sales by device.

Posted via the CrackBerry App for Android

[2WheelSpeed]

BlackBerry does not need saving. Year over year means nothing in a legacy revenue vs new revenue focus. Priv sales mean nothing as they don't count sales to retail only sales to end user and I'm still waiting for mine to ship. The only metric is to look at quarter over quarter and if their new focus is gaining traction and if they are burning cash. Everything else is just noise about how many they sold last year or what sales were last year. New business focus requires revised look at what's important now not what happened last year because that business model is dead.

Posted via CB10

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Well, if they had sold a million of them in the first month, they'd be shouting it to the rooftops even before the financial report.

In fact, if it had sold significantly better than the Passport did in the same period after launch, we'd have heard about it too. Their cautious approach to releasing numbers leads me to believe that the sales are unspectacular. This may be due to the fact that they didn't produce many of them, but it does affect how well they'll sell. The average consumer wants to join 'the latest hot thing' - you cannot have a 'hot thing' if people cannot buy them. Luckily there hasn't been any major tech release over the period since the Priv launch to distract the consumer from the Priv.

1) They seem to be selling everything they are making.... so sales must be exceeding expectations. "They are selling GREAT!"

2) For some reason... it "seems" they weren't expecting to sell many PRIV's and thus production has been very limited.


I don't think that Chen planned to make the PRIV unsuccessful, but by not producing them in quantity, not marketing them, not releasing them fully (no exclusives), not pricing them competitively, not "going all in" as it were. I just don't see the PRIV being able to maintain it's "popularity" once the next Gen Android's start hitting the market in January. As a Verizon user, and hearing the PRIV isn't going to come until possible as late as Feb 2016.... both Samsung (GS7 to have version of force touch) and LG (G5 might be the next Nexus phone) have reportedly moved up the release times for their new Flagship Devices (because of poor sales) (Jan & Feb). Unless the PRIV is going to get a big price drop before joining the Verizon lineup... it's going to be sadly out classed in the flagship category. (especially if they don't have Marshmallow out by then)

[kirson]

I'll offer my perspective - the Priv has very little to do with saving Blackberry. And neither does BB10. Or QNX, for that matter. Yes, all of these things have some impact on the company, but at the core, John Chen has been painfully explicit about what will save Blackberry: the software offering. I presume this means EMM, BES, MDM, IoT and maybe one or two other acronyms. Blackberry has a huge problem that is often hidden from plain sight. They generate a lot of revenues (around 40%) from hardware sales at very low overall margin (taking into account the fully burdened cost of providing hardware) and they generate a lot of revenues (around 40%) from legacy BIS services with HUGE overall margins. Both of those segments are declining at around 30% period over period. Have been for quite some time, and are not showing any sign of declining any less. Now, the Priv may be a huge home run, and may eventually sell enough units to cover all of the associate costs thereby removing the huge drag the hardware division has been generating. But what the Priv cannot do is slow down the loss of the BIS services revenues. Those are going away. And unless the software division starts generating A LOT of revenues, nothing else will really count. Chen has gotten cute when reporting software sales, and he has lumped in licensing revenues into the same bucket - but most of the licensing revenues are one time in nature, and once generated, are very hard to replenish. So, what do we have left? A rapidly approaching end of runway as services revenues die off, and a very slowly filling pipeline for real software revenues. The Priv is really a red herring. If you like it, then enjoy it. If you don't like it, and prefer BB10, then get an awesome Classic, or Z30 or Passport. And if you're really old school, find a 9700 on eBay - I LOVE those little critters. But the survival of Blackberry - regardless of the sentiment here on Crackberry - is being written elsewhere.

[ce71]

i got an iphone 6s plus but i didnt want to start a flame war :P but i must say im quite content.

Just hanging out here to stir up the pot then? iPhone forum too busy?

[ce71]

I'll offer my perspective - the Priv has very little to do with saving Blackberry. And neither does BB10. Or QNX, for that matter. Yes, all of these things have some impact on the company, but at the core, John Chen has been painfully explicit about what will save Blackberry: the software offering. I presume this means EMM, BES, MDM, IoT and maybe one or two other acronyms. Blackberry has a huge problem that is often hidden from plain sight. They generate a lot of revenues (around 40%) from hardware sales at very low overall margin (taking into account the fully burdened cost of providing hardware) and they generate a lot of revenues (around 40%) from legacy BIS services with HUGE overall margins. Both of those segments are declining at around 30% period over period. Have been for quite some time, and are not showing any sign of declining any less. Now, the Priv may be a huge home run, and may eventually sell enough units to cover all of the associate costs thereby removing the huge drag the hardware division has been generating. But what the Priv cannot do is slow down the loss of the BIS services revenues. Those are going away. And unless the software division starts generating A LOT of revenues, nothing else will really count. Chen has gotten cute when reporting software sales, and he has lumped in licensing revenues into the same bucket - but most of the licensing revenues are one time in nature, and once generated, are very hard to replenish. So, what do we have left? A rapidly approaching end of runway as services revenues die off, and a very slowly filling pipeline for real software revenues. The Priv is really a red herring. If you like it, then enjoy it. If you don't like it, and prefer BB10, then get an awesome Classic, or Z30 or Passport. And if you're really old school, find a 9700 on eBay - I LOVE those little critters. But the survival of Blackberry - regardless of the sentiment here on Crackberry - is being written elsewhere.

I never thought the survival of BlackBerry rested on the Priv. Although... survival of BlackBerry's handset division certainly does.

[BB_PP]

Funny. Makes me think of the BB10 extremists who want the Priv to fail, yet if BlackBerry is to stay in the handset division, and thus, keep BB10 updated, the Priv is their only hope.

I am BB10 fan but love Priv too! Many Passport owners bought Priv already! These are not BB10 extremists, some people always want BlackBerry to fail even if they land on moon

Posted via Passport

[ce71]

I am BB10 fan but love Priv too! Many Passport owners bought Priv already! These are not BB10 extremists, some people always want BlackBerry to fail even if they land on moon

Posted via Passport

I agree. I like BB10 and I'm a Passport owner as well. Although unfortunately, I'm having a hard time selling it on CraigsList because it's lost so much value.

[mad_mdx]

BlackBerry does not need saving. Year over year means nothing in a legacy revenue vs new revenue focus. Priv sales mean nothing as they don't count sales to retail only sales to end user and I'm still waiting for mine to ship. The only metric is to look at quarter over quarter and if their new focus is gaining traction and if they are burning cash. Everything else is just noise about how many they sold last year or what sales were last year. New business focus requires revised look at what's important now not what happened last year because that business model is dead.

Posted via CB10

The only sensible comment about a company's financial position on all of crackberry. Someone should write an article about this post. My faith in crackberry members is restored

[BriniaSona]

I agree. I like BB10 and I'm a Passport owner as well. Although unfortunately, I'm having a hard time selling it on CraigsList because it's lost so much value.

Don't feel bad. I had a d month old HTC M9 and no one would offer more than 250 Canadian for it. Heck even stores wouldn't buy it for more than 120 cad. Unless it's an iPhone or note series, the value drops faster than rocks in water.

[lang007]

I could be wrong but I truly feel BB do not want to sell phones at all. My gut is telling me that they only want to focus on the software side of things. IMO

[qwerty4ever]

im really curious how many loyal bb fans they lost vs the amount of ppl they gained from the android market. they lost me for good for sure

You'll come crawling back soon enough.

BlackBerry Priv with CrackBerry App for Android

[dvarnai]

Just hanging out here to stir up the pot then? iPhone forum too busy?

I still use my passport too