[scorepion]

BlackBerry fights back!

As a journalist, I see lots of rumor stories and so-called analyses that send shivers down my spin. I just know that someone looks to benefit from information that moves some company's stock price. I'm not an investor, knowing that any of my legitimate news stories can affect a public company's shares; it's ethical protocol, too, not to invest in companies you write about. Often manipulation is obvious, but hard to prove. So with great interest I watch BlackBerry's aggressive response to stock shattering news unleashed by an analyst firm yesterday. I make no accusations of wrongdoing. BlackBerry already has.
Shares of the Canadian smartphone and tablet maker plunged about 8 percent yesterday after reports of high BlackBerry Z10 returns. "In several cases, returns are now exceeding sales, a phenomenon we have never seen before", Detwiler Fenton claims. BlackBerry's response is swift and shows just how dramatically different is the leadership under CEO Thorsten Heins. The company asks the Securities and Exchange Commission and Ontario Securities Commission to investigate the "false and misleading report".

Brazen Response
The report, whether or not true, hurts BlackBerry. The once great smartphone maker is a fallen star looking to rise, and Z10 is the engine. Word of high returns can hurt sales, if people or partners considering the Z10 lose confidence in BlackBerry and question whether the company will even be in business a year from now. The implications of high returns is much bigger than the share price. As I repeatedly assert: In business perception iseverything.
Heins takes control with a no-nonsense denial that sets a different perception:

Sales of the BlackBerry Z10 are meeting expectations and the data we have collected from our retail and carrier partners demonstrates that customers are satisfied with their devices. Return rate statistics show that we are at or below our forecasts and right in line with the industry. To suggest otherwise is either a gross misreading of the data or a willful manipulation. Such a conclusion is absolutely without basis and BlackBerry will not leave it unchallenged.

I'm used to company non-denial denials that are meant to do PR damage control but don't answer the accusation at hand. Heins stands out for clarity that suggests something isn't right with the high-returns report. "Right in line with the industry" and "gross misreading of the data or a willful manipulation" are unambiguous statements and the latter likely to come back to BlackBerry if libelous. You don't publicly suggest or outright accuse a financial analyst firm of "willful manipulation" unless you're a fool or confident you're right.
"These materially false and misleading comments about device return rates in the United States harm BlackBerry and our shareholders, and we call upon the appropriate authorities in Canada and the United States to conduct an immediate investigation", Steve Zipperstein, BlackBerry chief legal officer, says. "Everyone is entitled to their opinion about the merits of the many competing products in the smartphone industry, but when false statements of material fact are deliberately purveyed for the purpose of influencing the markets a red line has been crossed".
Verizon sides with BlackBerry refuting high return rates.
Hidden Conflicts
One of my big gripes with financial or trade analysts is outright conflict of interest -- the kind journalists are ethically bound to avoid. Many analyst reports read as neutral assessments, but the companies in question also often are clients. In the case of Wall Streeters, the flipside could be true, where clients are competitors of companies they report about or investors in rivals. Some analysts publicly disclose corporate client lists, but most do not -- and no investment firm would expose its list of individual investors and where they place their money.
But that's a somewhat unfair assessment. BlackBerry has huge vested interest in disputing reports of high Z10 returns, so there's a different kind of conflict of interest. Sadly, trust no one, is a good journalist's motto.
Whenever there is any analyst report, rumor or leak about public company, my first question always is: "Who benefits?" That's absolutely the measure here. Who benefits from Detwiler Fenton's report. That's a question a formal SEC or OSC investigation could answer. How BlackBerry benefits from the aggressive response is obvious.
There are many reasons why BetaNews runs so few rumor stories or why I often qualify those that rely on analyst data. As journalists, we have a responsibility to not only report as accurately as possible but to be mindful the impact any story can have on publicly-traded companies like BlackBerry. We don't make editorial decisions based on whether or not X or Y story might hurt or help some company, but, rather, knowing such might be the case make extra diligence to be as accurate as possible based on what we know to be true at the time of writing. We have a responsibility to our readers and to those entities about which we write.
They make me Puke
I'm bloody sick of the "post first, get the facts right later" attitude that is so common across blogs and some news sites. The practice enables people that spread rumors or write false reports for the purpose of manipulating some company's share price. BlackBerry's gripe is with one analyst report, which may or may not prove to be true. But the dispute spotlights a much larger problem of stock manipulation that bloggers, journalists and other writers enable.
Just because so-and-so says something is true doesn't mean it is. Or worse that many people say something is true -- the latter is the echo chamber of falsehood so many blogs, news sites and social networks foster. The practice is worst when Blog A reports rumor B and sites C through Z re-report without ever confirming the veracity via independent sources.
Someone here lies. BlackBerry and Detwiler Fenton both can't be right about Z10 return rates. But that's another story.

[sooman54]

Would you really expect Blackberry to issue a statement acknowledging an issue?. That is a standard PR reply 'in line with or better than our expectations' without actually indicating what the expectations are it is hard to measure if a problem exists, if they expected a 50% return rate and the rate is 48% that statement is true

You selectively left out the "...... and are consistent with return rates for other premium smartphones in the market today.”

[sooman54]

Premium phone?? It is selling on Amazon for $99! That is not a premium phone. With it's dirth of software it is more like a flip phone.

I bought my wife's S3 from Bell for $49 last October.... what's your point ?

[2 Phonez]

Premium phone?? It is selling on Amazon for $99! That is not a premium phone. With it's dirth of software it is more like a flip phone.

You can't judge the value of the phone based on a subsidised price. A subsidy literally means part of the price is paid by someone else (in this case, a carrier). In the UK most smartphones are free on contract, but that doesn't mean they aren't premium devices, it just means the upfront cost of covered by the cost of the 24 month commitment.

[JasW]

Well, it is pretty obvious from BB's request for an investigation into the story by market regulators that the story the OP referenced is either fabricated or purposefully misleading. It just seems like these market analysts aren't required to come up with any facts, just a few quotes from a source that is not revealed.

Really? You don't follow securities regulation much, do you? Just because a request for an investigation has been made doesn't mean anything at all. It certainly doesn't mean that the Detweiler report was fabricated or purposefully misleading. BBRY is in deep doo-doo, and it shows.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2

[DanceSport]

Please, don't shoot the messenger. Just wanted to post this here and see what people's thoughts on this are.

BlackBerry Falls on Reports of Weakening Sales, Returns of Z10 - Bloomberg

“The U.S. launch of the Z10 started poorly and weakened significantly as the days passed,” Joseph Fersedi, an analyst at ITG Investment Research, said today in a note, citing information from independent dealers. Some U.S. retailers are seeing a significant increase in customers returning their Z10s because they find the interface unintuitive, Detwiler Fenton & Co. said today.
“In several cases, returns are now exceeding sales, a phenomenon we have never seen before,” Detwiler Fenton said.

Thoughts?

What is your opinion? I am gathering support for potentially launching a class action suite against Detwiler Fenton & Co. Any takers? We need lawyers willing to take this case.

Time to hit back, hard!

[trsbbs]

With the missing apps, the reboot issue, battery life issues and folks not being able to adapt to it I could see a small period of time that some stores might be getting more returns and exchanges then sold that day.
Hopefully BlackBerry will get these issues corrected. Folks are becoming aware of these issues and it taints their perception of BlackBerry.

With the SG4 and HTC One starting to be promoted at a higher degree then BlackBerry is time is short for BlackBerry to get things on track and mount a hot affective ad campaign.

It may be too let and would be wise to work out the bugs and add some "Wow" features. Both for the current BB10 phones but also for a back to school price point special and then roll out a quad core, top spec and refined phone for the holidays. Massive TV time in the US.

Then roll a new tablet along with more cost effect Curve like offeringsm. Make this a loss leader. Suck them into the BlackBerry world, get them addicted and then up sell them to higher end versions.

Offer optional BIS for a small fee.

Give Netflix 2 million for allowing BlackBerry to produce a native app.


Raise our in store atmosphere and impact. Pay mistory shopper to check out the stores,

Take action against sub performing retailer. Pull the products. Send in reps with Kiosk for two month during a release.

You have 3-4 weeks max to continue getting use able results. After that it slides off. But if over the top in sales let the flood gate open wide open. R

Tim


Posted with a BlackBerry Z10

[bubbbab]

Absolute false statement of material fact. Unbelievably underhanded attempt a target tampering. These people, and even the Canadian Press have no shame. Returns that exceed sales. LOL. Hopefully BlackBerry will take off the gloves.

Steve, Posted via CB10

[sooman54]

Really? You don't follow securities regulation much, do you? Just because a request for an investigation has been made doesn't mean anything at all. It certainly doesn't mean that the Detweiler report was fabricated or purposefully misleading. BBRY is in deep doo-doo, and it shows.

Blackberry is reacting the exact same way Apple or Samsung would have, had a report like this been put out on them. And the fact that Blackberry is asking for an investigation means they believe the report IS NOT CORRECT. Otherwise it would be foolish for them to draw more attention to it with a SEC investigation.

It's about time they started pushing back against those trying to manipulate the stock.

[RubberChicken76]

Thanks for letting us know. I couldn't sleep last night wondering what you were going to do. Best of luck.

I have no problem at all with the phone simply not being for everyone. That's why people choose what they like. For the life of me, I just couldn't get into the Samsung Galaxy and Android, despite a lot of tries. There are going to be people the same way with BlackBerry 10 too.

But your response did make me laugh out loud. Thanks for that!

[RubberChicken76]

With the missing apps, the reboot issue, battery life issues and folks not being able to adapt to it I could see a small period of time that some stores might be getting more returns and exchanges then sold that day.
Hopefully BlackBerry will get these issues corrected. Folks are becoming aware of these issues and it taints their perception of BlackBerry.

Agree that the issues should be fixed. That said, I would be weary of assuming that the people on these forums are indicative of the userbase as a whole having a wide spread problem. Go to any forum for any phone and you'll see issues of crashes, battery life shortages, freezes and other defects. Some are legit, some are user error, some have workarounds, some need fixes etc. Some are experienced by a lot of people, are are experienced by a few.

In these forums, we have a habit of reading posts by select posters and then assuming everyone has the issue.

There are absolutely missing apps that some people want. there are absolutely some users having battery life issues and reboot issues. There are other users that have the apps they want, fine battery life and no reboots.

[texazzpete]

What is your opinion? I am gathering support for potentially launching a class action suite against Detwiler Fenton & Co. Any takers? We need lawyers willing to take this case.

Time to hit back, hard!

That's crazy. Blackberry has called for an investigation...it is still not proof that they are guilty of anything.
Wait until AFTER the investigation then you can do what you will. You'll have to show the courts how you lost value though.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[anon(4275744)]

Explain this lucid analysis.

[marmad74]

I wouldn't believe media in 100%. Read all info not just one. In USA Apple has very strong position, and don't forget this is a battle. They loosing money right now, sale went down. New IPhone very soon.

Posted via BB Z10

[mnc76]

How to drop the keyboard to get to an attachment button was driving me to want to return this one

OMG. You don't have time to watch 2 minutes of video tutorials on your brand new phone?!?!?

Just take it back and enjoy your Galaxy S4 or whatever. I'm sure you'll be just great using all of its new features somehow without ever having learned how to use them.

[mnc76]

Really? You don't follow securities regulation much, do you? Just because a request for an investigation has been made doesn't mean anything at all. It certainly doesn't mean that the Detweiler report was fabricated or purposefully misleading. BBRY is in deep doo-doo, and it shows.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2

According to BlackBerry they have hard evidence that directly and materially contradicts the Detwiler Fenton report. Detwiler refuses to reveal how this 'data' was collected. BlackBerry's stock dropped 10% after the release of this unsubstantiated report.

Try to imagine if a similar situation happened for your business: How would you deal with it? How would you like people to believe some random team of 6 "analysyts" over your own data? How would you feel if you lost sales over such a report?

People keep using phrases such as "where there's smoke there's fire". I think its becoming clear that the "smoke" is growing signs suggesting willfull stock manipulation.

[mnc76]

Explain this lucid analysis.

Thanks for this link. Bloomberg clearly seems to have strong reservations about the validity of the Detwiler report, emphasizing how many people are short-selling the stock and how advantageous it is for these people to see the stock drop.

[lurk_n_post_2000]

Verizon says Z10 return rates are no higher than they've experienced with other smartphones

Verizon Supports BlackBerry Claim That Z10 Returns Aren’t Astronomical | Ubergizmo

[cuccut]

That is PR.

I think BBR should improve their support: for us who get random reboot, lack of popular apps.

[baste07]

Doesn't really matter if there are 1million returns as long as you are happy with it

Posted via CB10

[anon(4275744)]

Read this on CBC News today:

The new BlackBerry touch-screen smartphones are not being returned at an unusually high rate, despite suggestions to the contrary, according to an industry observer who has completed his own checks.

Jefferies telecom analyst Peter Misek, who has watched the BlackBerry company for years, says he considers the number of new BlackBerry Z10 phones being returned by customers "normal" for a new phone launch.

[FFR]

Verizon says Z10 return rates are no higher than they've experienced with other smartphones

So are they saying return rates are in line with the Microsoft kin? Or the palm pre 2? Or the palm pixi?