[Ecm]

Welcome to March 28th. We know that many (many) of the CB members will have something to say...

Let's keep it here, folks. Thanks!

[just_luc]

Good news/bad news as expected. Overall I'm not disappointed though.

[TgeekB]

It could have been worse.

Posted via my Nexus 10.

[AnimalPak200]

Expected low overall numbers... still can't believe more people are buying BBOS devices than BB10.

Posted via CB10

[thurask]

Numbers and legalese make me tune out, and the prospect of new Bolds and keyboard devices means little to someone that was expecting a non-Jakarta full touch.

In short, meh.

Posted via CB10

[AnimalPak200]

Numbers and legalese make me tune out, and the prospect of new Bolds and keyboard devices means little to someone that was expecting a non-Jakarta full touch.

In short, meh.

Posted via CB10

I still think they'll deliver a matching all-touch device to the "flagship" keyboard. It's just simpler to design/manufacture, and they already have the best virtual keyboard, so why not?

Posted via CB10

[badiyee]

the only tidbit of "what's coming' seems to be pointing at

1. a lot of groundwork for November. The BES 12.
2. cloud services on both BES and QNX. BIS is hinted, but we'll see. Probably BES for personal use? I don't mind.
3. BlackBerry is looking into the entire MDM picture (hinting that they were not in the MDM business as a whole solution, yet or prior to this. Hints again at BES 12 as the gamechanger)
4. can or may consider into the business of "protecting identity". Which John Chen made to clarify that its different since they have the "deep know how" on protecting security. That indirectly quashes the notion that BlackBerry protects privacy as rigorously as protecting security.
5. Prying themselves out of the old models and old partners (especially those with hard to meet hire purchase agreements. unless I heard the term wrong) to other various models and partners who can and will guarantee a certain margin of profit.


Not that bad of a quarter. Could have been worse, but it does show that they are now reacting again to the forces in play about generalized sentiments.

[David Delaney]

Better the devil you know ... but there are strong sales internationally and they are in the BB10 Os so there is still good news. Also, the news regarding DOD certification was interesting ... not relevant to this but relevant overall

[flyingsolid]

2. cloud services on both BES and QNX. BIS is hinted, but we'll see. Probably BES for personal use? I don't mind.

Can someone expand on this? What was mentioned.

[badiyee]

Can someone expand on this?

I only caught this on the 2nd last caller asking for answers about what they (BlackBerry) is going to do with QNX, and John Chen put in lines about

1. we cannot say (QNX) dominates all of the market.
2. improve offerings where we can have direct revenue and indirect revenue
3. introduce cloud services to QNX, and BES

that was the bits and parts I've caught. If anybody has the recording it may shed some light into the words exactly spoken.

[finkle56]

I would like to see them, hit that cash reserve and go on a marketing blitz this year. Get blackberry out there, start to show some attitude that they were the first or close to it. Don't apologize or sit in the corner. It is time they come out swing and swing hard.
They have to change the culture they created of being old,outdated and a niche phone. It is time to show they have a great OS and great hardware. Time to throw some of that cash reserve into the marketing plan because all this word of mouth you read here and see in stores isn't enough.

It is time that Blackberry showed it wants to survive, instead of us cheerleaders trying to show it for them

[jeffydude05]

BBM isn't growing as fast as I hoped, only 5 million subscribers added from the end of October?? BBM adds over 20 million active users in the first week | CrackBerry.com

[badiyee]

Can someone explain this to me:

"recognized hardware revenue on approximately 1.3 million BlackBerry smartphones"

"During the fourth quarter, approximately 3.4 million BlackBerry smartphones were sold through to end customers, which included shipments made and recognized prior to the fourth quarter and which reduced the Company’s inventory in channel"

It doesn't add up.
Is blackberry giving away devices for free???
Or did blackberry only manage to sell 1.3 million blackberries this quarter???

What happened to the other 2.1 million blackberry devices????

Can someone please explain.

If I recall correctly, the same language used 1-2 quarters ago indicated that 1.3 is now in end users, but 2.1 still in channels. But payment won't be made to BlackBerry until the 2.1 get into the hands of end users. There are stocks within carriers / open market, which are in commits. Basically they already bought from BlackBerry, but have not pushed it to end users.

I would like to see them, hit that cash reserve and go on a marketing blitz this year. Get blackberry out there, start to show some attitude that they were the first or close to it. Don't apologize or sit in the corner. It is time they come out swing and swing hard.
They have to change the culture they created of being old,outdated and a niche phone. It is time to show they have a great OS and great hardware. Time to throw some of that cash reserve into the marketing plan because all this word of mouth you read here and see in stores isn't enough.

It is time that Blackberry showed it wants to survive, instead of us cheerleaders trying to show it for them

Don't think so. They actually cut the budget for advertising. Now (as implied in earnings call) they are buiding a sales team around BES 12, and trying to go full force in BES12.

[jeffydude05]

Can someone explain this to me:

"recognized hardware revenue on approximately 1.3 million BlackBerry smartphones"

"During the fourth quarter, approximately 3.4 million BlackBerry smartphones were sold through to end customers, which included shipments made and recognized prior to the fourth quarter and which reduced the Company’s inventory in channel"

It doesn't add up.
Is blackberry giving away devices for free???
Or did blackberry only manage to sell 1.3 million blackberries this quarter???

What happened to the other 2.1 million blackberry devices????

Can someone please explain.

They were sold to suppliers in a previous quarter.

[jeffydude05]

I would like to see them, hit that cash reserve and go on a marketing blitz this year. Get blackberry out there, start to show some attitude that they were the first or close to it. Don't apologize or sit in the corner. It is time they come out swing and swing hard.
They have to change the culture they created of being old,outdated and a niche phone. It is time to show they have a great OS and great hardware. Time to throw some of that cash reserve into the marketing plan because all this word of mouth you read here and see in stores isn't enough.

It is time that Blackberry showed it wants to survive, instead of us cheerleaders trying to show it for them

If they want to survive they need to focus on software and services, that's the future of Blackberry in my opinion.

[abwan11]

A lot depends on the z3 in coming months, at 200 bucks it may have the lure to hook some. I know I've been looking for a BlackBerry for my daughter and can't justify the cost of one over an android.

Posted via CB10

[cgk]

BBM isn't growing as fast as I hoped, only 5 million subscribers added from the end of October?? BBM adds over 20 million active users in the first week | CrackBerry.com

What we don't know - is that masking churn in the legacy userbase? So can we expect to see that number start to drop as people move away from legacy.

[jeffydude05]

What we don't know - is that masking churn in the legacy userbase? So can we expect to see that number start to drop as people move away from legacy.

In the best case if people move away from legacy, they use bbm on iOS/android. I wonder how many of the 30 million not activate users are iOS/android vs bb7/bb10.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[BBZ10wannabe]

Can someone explain this to me:

"recognized hardware revenue on approximately 1.3 million BlackBerry smartphones"

"During the fourth quarter, approximately 3.4 million BlackBerry smartphones were sold through to end customers, which included shipments made and recognized prior to the fourth quarter and which reduced the Company’s inventory in channel"

It doesn't add up.
Is blackberry giving away devices for free???
Or did blackberry only manage to sell 1.3 million blackberries this quarter???

What happened to the other 2.1 million blackberry devices????

Can someone please explain.

Are they giving them away for free? Not quite but not much better it seems.
Total revenue was 976M
Hardware revenue was 361.12M (37%x976M)
1.3 M handsets sold means $278 average price per unit. (361.12M/1.3M)

There was no breakdown provided between OS 7 and BB10 devices that were recognized as revenue.
The other 2.1M (3.4M-1.3M) units were previously recorded in revenue as having been sold to retailers/distributors. Nice that 3.4M customers got their hands on a BB device though.

Inventory went down by 30% because BBRY probably didn't manufacture any/many devices to build inventory. If this is true they likely had 4.3M units lying around at the end of last quarter and they are now sitting with 30% less 1.3/30% = 4.333M units

Hence current inventory of all BBRY devices stands at about 3.03M (4.33-1.3M)

Of course I could be missing some important figures to change the numbers.

One number of note is the 149M taken back into income for the previously written-down Z10's. This is probably what helped them boast that their gross margins increased since it's free revenue with zero cost since that was already expensed last quarter so I wouldn't count on that 43% margin continuing on a go forward basis. That being said the 34% last quarter may have been too low due to the Z10 write-downs that added to cost back then. The "normal" number is probably somewhere in between.

[Bookshelf]

"which included shipments made and recognized prior to the fourth quarter".

This is some of the fuzzy corporate bookkeeping.
They can talk about sales in one quarter, Shipment in another and actual income in a third.
Plus -when someone returns a phone they count the sale even through there's no income.

[Bookshelf]

Interesting quote-
"Chen emphasized that the company must make its handset business profitable and he said it would launch at least two new devices, while accelerating production of its Bold device..."
Looks like still selling a lot of Blackberry Bolds. They also mentioned earlier that about 2/3rds of their users were using OS7 devices. Inventory wise that mean they were sitting on stocks piles of OS10 devices while customers were asking for OS7 Blackberry Bolds. It looked like until the new keyboard/track-devices arrived they restock their Bold inventory. The customer is always right and if they want fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror- you sell fuzzy dice.

[madman0141]

This is what happens when you are trying to....never mind.

[OVOMustafa]

What did he mean by two new devices? The BB10 ones we know about? I'm happy they are still producing Bold 9900's. I have one but would like a spare for the future lol

[crackbrry fan]

Considering NO marketing and heavy push back from many North American Carriers the final figures for this quarter were not that bad. Now if only they can focus on Marketing of the next Generation of Devices and start monetization of various services we will see a return to profitably over the next 12 to 18 months.

Posted via CB10

[JonCBK]

Expected low overall numbers... still can't believe more people are buying BBOS devices than BB10.

Posted via CB10

You know for a lot of people those BBOS phones fit their needs. And they are smaller and lighter than modern smartphones.

Posted via CB10