[Wilsonia Goldens]

Some glad the analysts at CNBC are not running Blackberry or BB would have been bankrupt by now!
BlackBerry CEO on Earnings Beat - CNBC

[RubberChicken76]

Some glad the analysts at CNBC are not running Blackberry or BB would have been bankrupt by now!
BlackBerry CEO on Earnings Beat - CNBC

Not sure I'd call the drop a "sharp drop" or "plummet".

They went from 79 million to 76 million, not 79 million to 43 million. :-)

It was the final quarter with two thirds of it selling 18 month old product to a market that knew new product was coming right after Christmas.

The reporter definitely asked tough questions and definitely had a bias for sure. Still, Heins response to the why not QWERTY made me laugh. Great retort.

[Wilsonia Goldens]

Subscriber numbers are meaningless! They will eventually be zero! That system is being phased out and the BYOD, and enterprise system, a whole new system of generating revenue is being phased in. The analysts on CNBC either ignored everything that Mr. Heins said or it went over their heads. They cannot get it in their mind that the Z10 was not aimed at the BB user it was aimed at the non BB user. So Far it has done a great job as 50% of the 10 users are either ex BB users or users directly from another platform.

[Meaty123]

I am curious to see how the numbers will pan out once the Q10 comes out. Tons of people are waiting for it. It may not change the number of subscribers much but sales will be affected.

[Wilsonia Goldens]

I am curious to see how the numbers will pan out once the Q10 comes out. Tons of people are waiting for it. It may not change the number of subscribers much but sales will be affected.

It should not change subscriber numbers up or down. If I understand correctly BB10 is not part of the subscriber system. BB10 can only affect subscriber numbers in a negative way by those who are subscribers switching to BB10. Therefore great success for the BB10 will mean a lot less subscribers.

[Gnomesane]

Some glad the analysts at CNBC are not running Blackberry or BB would have been bankrupt by now!
BlackBerry CEO on Earnings Beat - CNBC

Good Lord, I'm blinded by the graphics coming in and out, and the 'swoosh' sound effects. I thought Sesame Street was bad for attention deficit disorder... Honestly... Anyway...

...
Interviewer: But can you really confidently say that you can build a global brand at a time when your subscriber numbers here in the United States are falling, when your brand is losing relevance to the iPhone, and to Android, and to certainly, I think Samsung....

Of course, Samsung is known for the Samsung OS.... And then here's where I had to get out:

Interviewer: You said of the iPhone, it was starting to look, in your words, a little dusty...

Actual quote: "The user interface on the iPhone, with all due respect for what this invention was all about is now five years old.."

So where did the dusty comment from? A lazy anchor, or his lazy assistant probably googled their 'research' and is likely quoting an Ubergizmo article... LINK: Blackberry’s CEO Calls iOS’ UI Dusty And Old | Ubergizmo

At least that's what I think. I can't find a direct quote where Thorsten Heins called iOS 'dusty'. Am I missing something?

[Thunderbuck]

It should not change subscriber numbers up or down. If I understand correctly BB10 is not part of the subscriber system. BB10 can only affect subscriber numbers in a negative way by those who are subscribers switching to BB10. Therefore great success for the BB10 will mean a lot less subscribers.

We need more clarity on this. According to Chris Umi BB10 users are supposed to be counted. What bothers me about that is that it would mean that BBOS subs dropped even more. As well, the sub number really needs to be broken out because BBOS subscriptions still represent revenue.

On top of all that, TH's comments in the CNBC interview suggest that the number really IS just BBOS subs.

Posted via CB10

[tiziano27]

We need more clarity on this. According to Chris Umi BB10 users are supposed to be counted. What bothers me about that is that it would mean that BBOS subs dropped even more. As well, the sub number really needs to be broken out because BBOS subscriptions still represent revenue.

On top of all that, TH's comments in the CNBC interview suggest that the number really IS just BBOS subs.

Posted via CB10

I heard abaut that change too, searching I just found this:

"According to Genovese, the company now considers a subscriber somebody that owns a BlackBerry device instead of somebody who owns a device and has a data plan"

BlackBerry Results Not as Impressive as Initially Thought

[Wilsonia Goldens]

I understand the subscriber system to be that the carriers have to pay a fee to BB for each subscriber using a non BB10 device. But I was of the understanding that carriers no longer had to pay a fee to BB for BB10 users. BB was moving away from charging a fee in favour of revenue from the enterprise system. I too would like someone who knows to fill us in on what is correct so that we know what is going on.

[RubberChicken76]

I heard abaut that change too, searching I just found this:

"According to Genovese, the company now considers a subscriber somebody that owns a BlackBerry device instead of somebody who owns a device and has a data plan"

BlackBerry Results Not as Impressive as Initially Thought

So is PlayBook counted in that?

[tiziano27]

The change in the subscriber definition is explained in the third quarter financial report, pages 7-8.

http://ca.blackberry.com/content/dam...nal_filing.pdf

To reflect the changes described above, and to better address possible future strategies and service and software revenue opportunities related to an integrated services and software offering for the BlackBerry 10 mobile computing platform, RIM will be adjusting the methodology it uses to calculate the size of its subscriber base for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2013 and subsequent fiscal quarters. Rather than calculating the total of all subscriber accounts that have an active status at the end of a reporting period and for which infrastructure access fees are thereby generated, RIM will identify its BlackBerry subscriber base as the total of all BlackBerry subscriber accounts that are provisioned to access BlackBerry services, regardless of whether RIM is receiving infrastructure access fees from each such subscriber in any given month. The Company believes this change will better reflect the base of BlackBerry users that may contribute to service revenues in the future, whether solely through infrastructure access fees or the integrated service and software offering being developed.

[toujours_frais]

I think Thor did a great job there at answering all the questions... My only concern, how much money will BBRY be burning for R&D of new product launches?

[RubberChicken76]

OK - so it sounds like BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10 and BlackBerry PlayBook are included in that "subscriber" number.

Probably a combo of unique PINs for old devices and BlackBerry ID's for the new devices.

[Dapper37]

Their ignorance is overwhelming! Their distrust will build a stronger BlackBerry! Job well don't TH.

[Wilsonia Goldens]

Subscriber numbers at this time are meaningless because there are high end users that bring in the money and low end users. If it is low end users that are abandoning ship then a drop in subscribers will not adversely affect the bottom line. The important thing is for BB10 to reverse this trend and it will take time for this to happen as the new phones hit the market. Mr Heins did a great job in the interview the reporters did not.

[EchoTango]

While it was clear, Thor walked into the lions den as CNBC are clearly not BBerry fans, he definitely kept on message.

However, he does need to have a better answer to the subscriber bleed question. The commentators are correct, if existing customers are defecting in sustained droves, the company is clearly still in trouble. I might have replied with something along the lines of ; during a product roll-out you will always have certain defection rate until the new products are actually available. Also, an important fact is that ~50% of the BB10 buyers are coming from other platforms means BBerry is no longer just churning its own install base.

All that said, its very refreshing to see a BBerry CEO deal with facts and provide straight answers that make sense and not sounding totally detached from reality.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

BlackBerry subscriber accounts that are provisioned to access BlackBerry services

I can see the Z10 being included in this number, BBM still goes through their network. But what "services" does the PlayBook access? Is App World a "service", does just having a BlackBerry id count? If the PlayBook does count, then the subscriber base has fallen even more.

To me BBRY now has three different Platforms (BBOS, BB10 and PlayBooks QNX) and should breakout the numbers for each.

Either way I'm sure BBRY has it broken out internally and they now exactly how many OS4 devices are still active, how many OS5 devices are still working..... and I'm SURE that they know how many BB10 devices have been activated. The fact the Thor "said" hew wasn't sure is a concern - that has to be something he wants to know, just not something he wants us to know.

[Thunderbuck]

So is PlayBook counted in that?

I was going to dismiss this as a drop in the bucket, but with 370k PB sales in the quarter we're looking at about 2.5mm devices now. If you add up 2.5mm Playbooks, say 700k Z10s (conservative estimate from sell-through) you're looking at over 3mm devices. If the overall subscriber number counts these that would suggest that there were actually 6mm subscriptions lost on the BBOS side, which I flatly don't believe.

[Thunderbuck]

The change in the subscriber definition is explained in the third quarter financial report, pages 7-8.

http://ca.blackberry.com/content/dam...nal_filing.pdf

Great find. It's nice to have an authoritative answer.

As I just posted here, though, if they really used this methodology then it implies that they shed over 6mm BBOS (i.e. fee-generating) subscriptions. I don't like that at all, and I'd really like to see a breakout.

I may need to drop a line to Investor Relations.

[BRG3450]

I read that by this definition, licenses for each Android and iOS device controlled through BES10 are counted as a subscription. This would see and improvement over time as the service is rolled out. Can anyone confirm this?

[dusdal]

Though the main 'interviewer' had an overall negative and combative tone, I thought Thorsten did well. Calm, cool and collected. But tired, haha.

I wouldn't have been able to hold that composure in those circumstances Haha.

Posted via CB10

[E_J]

At the end one of the hosts was saying that BB needs to focus on growth and expand their user base lol didn't he hear that over half the Z10's were sold to people coming from other platforms. (facepalm)