1. cjcampbell's Avatar
    Keep in mind that although RBC set a low number for the the upcoming year, they raised their price to $19. I just think they're being cautious at this point as to not over expect. I'd venture to say that we'll see 750k sell through by the end of Feb which should boost the numbers for the fiscal quarter, and confidence for the coming year.
    01-24-13 05:46 PM
  2. cjcampbell's Avatar
    Man, 500k in the first month would be B.A.D. They want to hit the ground running.
    Keep in mind the staggered launch. They won't really have a full month of sales in any market.... and... quite a few are taking the "wait and see" approach before they buy.
    01-24-13 05:47 PM
  3. kevinnugent's Avatar
    Keep in mind the staggered launch. They won't really have a full month of sales in any market.... and... quite a few are taking the "wait and see" approach before they buy.
    But still.... 500,000 isn't that many in a whole month. Especially with all the buzz they will hopefully generate.
    01-24-13 05:54 PM
  4. pmccartney's Avatar
    Keep in mind that although RBC set a low number for the the upcoming year, they raised their price to $19. I just think they're being cautious at this point as to not over expect. I'd venture to say that we'll see 750k sell through by the end of Feb which should boost the numbers for the fiscal quarter, and confidence for the coming year.
    I agree with this.
    It's only ok for them to over expect when it's negative and detrimental to companies (ie short stock). Sorry, I'm just so sick and tired of analysts.
    01-24-13 05:57 PM
  5. kill_9's Avatar
    Production of 1 million per month with only 11 months left in the year is roughly 10 million. Sounds about right.
    I'm just amazed how you can step up production so quickly. 1 million a month is 50,000 a day, or 6250 an hour. Assuming it takes an hour per device, they need 6250 people working on these worldwide. Which isn't a lot if you think in terms of the world population. But it's big in terms of the number of people they would have to hire within the few companies RIM has contracts with.
    Automation reduces the need for slow humans. We are not talking about BlackBerrys being manufactured in China so automation is essential. But if RIM can only sell 10 million BlackBerry 10 smartphones in 2013 the stock price will tumble; they have a potential pool of over 70 million current users so 10/70 = 1/7 = a very small number which means financial disaster.
    01-24-13 05:59 PM
  6. Dapper37's Avatar
    10.5 million in 2013 is extremely low expectation IMO, last quarter they sold 6.9 million devices that are over a year old. There is at least 10 million BB users ready to upgrade to BB10 as soon as they have their money in order (feb-jun time). Besides you can not compare first year of iPhone to first year of BB10 because BB is established product and has plenty of upgrade potential, first iPhone was brand new product at the time.
    Not to mention, the market is 10times the size now.
    01-24-13 06:00 PM
  7. Superfly_FR's Avatar
    1 year target is 18M for "the street" to claim success. 10M would be an acceptable result but considered as mitigated. Over 20M, we have a strong winner here (I mean far ahead of recovery schedule : 3-5 years).
    mikeo007 likes this.
    01-24-13 06:03 PM
  8. Acumenight's Avatar
    Wouldn't RBC have more accurate numbers, seeing their ex-CEO is in the Board of Directors for RIM?
    01-24-13 06:04 PM
  9. Dapper37's Avatar
    RBC was wrong on the way down, looks like new guy is starting off wrong on the way up? P Misek even said the carriers were in for volume shipments in the first 2 quarters.
    01-24-13 06:06 PM
  10. Goint's Avatar
    Production of 1 million per month with only 11 months left in the year is roughly 10 million. Sounds about right.
    I'm just amazed how you can step up production so quickly. 1 million a month is 50,000 a day, or 6250 an hour. Assuming it takes an hour per device, they need 6250 people working on these worldwide. Which isn't a lot if you think in terms of the world population. But it's big in terms of the number of people they would have to hire within the few companies RIM has contracts with.
    Given that they have been pumping out around 5M OS7 a quarter, doing far more than 1M BB10 should be easy. The constraint is on the demand side not the supply. Nowadays with JIT in place everywhere, they are easily scale up to where they need to be. I think the estimate is pretty low but who knows if people will show up with their dollars.
    Guaranteed whatever happens on Jan 30, we are going to see a lot of "RIP RIM" posts everywhere.
    01-24-13 06:10 PM
  11. richardat's Avatar
    Depends how you look at it.

    The first iPhone was released on June 29th, 2007 and I believe they sold about 2-3 million units in the remainder of that calendar year.

    10 million in a year for a new platform wouldn't be bad in my eyes. It can catch on after that just like the iPhone did.
    Yeah....I hate to splash the reality water on here, since I"ll undoubtedly be persecuted for it, but that's not how it works. First, I hope you realize the comparison to iphone 1 is ridiculous. Unless we are all going back through the Guardian of Forever, you cannot compare smartphone sales from 2007 to today. The iphone market has grown since then, the smartphone market has grown since then....the magnitude of growth is startling. Do you think that if Apple released iphone 6 with a brand new platform they would be happy matching iphone 1 sales? Of course not.

    I do agree with you of course that BB10 cannot expect numbers like android or ios, but, the fact is, it is vital they get big numbers. They need a reasonable market share. Long term, it's the only way. The truth is, 10 mil, or even 20 mil, is still a pittance of the market. That means, momentum of all kinds, the public profile, the awareness, the DEVELOPERS, the MONEY also falls behind.

    When you are a small player like RIM, you can't come in with tiny expectations, and think it will all work out. You need to make a serious impact, and get a strong foothold, or....you will get squeezed out like a bug.
    01-25-13 01:24 AM
  12. BBNation's Avatar
    Keep in mind that although RBC set a low number for the the upcoming year, they raised their price to $19. I just think they're being cautious at this point as to not over expect. I'd venture to say that we'll see 750k sell through by the end of Feb which should boost the numbers for the fiscal quarter, and confidence for the coming year.
    I think RIM reports numbers of shipped, not sold. So it should ship 1-2 million in feb if they start shipping first week. per tweet, start shipping starting wed. marketing material by Monday in stores.
    01-25-13 01:43 AM
  13. anon(1049620)'s Avatar
    Guys, let's keep in mind this is about momentum, not about immediate sales. As most people who upgrade lock into 2 or 3 year contracts with carriers, low numbers in the first year are NOT a big worry. RIM is laying the foundation for the NEXT mobile computing platform, not for just the next year. As people switch over, momentum gains, more big developers support the platform, and eventually (within 2 to 3 years) RIM is up in the 50-100 million mark. This is a long term game here, nothing happens overnight, not for anyone. Microsoft doesn't understand that, they're going short-term, hence WP8 is a flop.
    01-25-13 08:13 AM
  14. RubberChicken76's Avatar
    I think RIM reports numbers of shipped, not sold.
    They report three metrics usually:

    - The number shipped (6.9 million in last quarter)
    - The number of active BlackBerry users (79 million in last quarter)
    - The number sold to customers (8.4 million in last quarter)

    Usually the first two are in the press release and the last is mentioned in the earnings call. they used to report "net new" BlackBerry subscribers too, but dropped then when it became harder to calculate and none of their competitors were doing it.
    01-25-13 08:21 AM
  15. pmccartney's Avatar
    Guys, let's keep in mind this is about momentum, not about immediate sales. As most people who upgrade lock into 2 or 3 year contracts with carriers, low numbers in the first year are NOT a big worry. RIM is laying the foundation for the NEXT mobile computing platform, not for just the next year. As people switch over, momentum gains, more big developers support the platform, and eventually (within 2 to 3 years) RIM is up in the 50-100 million mark. This is a long term game here, nothing happens overnight, not for anyone. Microsoft doesn't understand that, they're going short-term, hence WP8 is a flop.
    Perhaps I misunderstood something here. Is RIM not already at the 79 million mark? Wouldn't they have to only go up from that?
    01-25-13 08:23 AM
  16. cjcampbell's Avatar
    Perhaps I misunderstood something here. Is RIM not already at the 79 million mark? Wouldn't they have to only go up from that?
    That's active users, not devices sold in any given quarter or year.
    01-25-13 08:33 AM
  17. pmccartney's Avatar
    That's active users, not devices sold in any given quarter or year.
    It seems to me that if RIM only sells 50 to 100 million new smartphones, within 2 to 3 years, then they wouldn't be making much headway in market share.
    01-25-13 08:50 AM
  18. shlammed's Avatar
    I said BB is an established product! And has plenty of upgrade potential! Besides, the amount of flops in last few years should not be taken into account at this point because the management is entirely new and have yet to show if they will flop or deliver.
    you really have no idea how hard of a hit the blackberry image has taken do you?
    01-25-13 08:52 AM
  19. alan510's Avatar
    Wouldn't RBC have more accurate numbers, seeing their ex-CEO is in the Board of Directors for RIM?
    I doubt the analyst would have any connection to RIM's Board. Board information is confidential, especially balance sheet projections and the like. Leaking that information is illegal, especially given we are dealing with a publicly traded stock.

    As for Q1 estimates, you have to think that government and enterprise adoption rates would greatly influence the numbers. I guess we'll see soon.
    01-25-13 08:54 AM
  20. shlammed's Avatar
    Yeah....I hate to splash the reality water on here, since I"ll undoubtedly be persecuted for it, but that's not how it works. First, I hope you realize the comparison to iphone 1 is ridiculous. Unless we are all going back through the Guardian of Forever, you cannot compare smartphone sales from 2007 to today. The iphone market has grown since then, the smartphone market has grown since then....the magnitude of growth is startling. Do you think that if Apple released iphone 6 with a brand new platform they would be happy matching iphone 1 sales? Of course not.

    I do agree with you of course that BB10 cannot expect numbers like android or ios, but, the fact is, it is vital they get big numbers. They need a reasonable market share. Long term, it's the only way. The truth is, 10 mil, or even 20 mil, is still a pittance of the market. That means, momentum of all kinds, the public profile, the awareness, the DEVELOPERS, the MONEY also falls behind.

    When you are a small player like RIM, you can't come in with tiny expectations, and think it will all work out. You need to make a serious impact, and get a strong foothold, or....you will get squeezed out like a bug.
    I wasn't comparing numbers to numbers. I was comparing the two in the sense that when the iPhone came out, it didn't skyrocket and took a couple of years to finally overtake RIM in sales.
    01-25-13 09:17 AM
  21. cjcampbell's Avatar
    It seems to me that if RIM only sells 50 to 100 million new smartphones, within 2 to 3 years, then they wouldn't be making much headway in market share.
    If they sold 100 million units in the next 2 years, that would be adding 21 million users. Now that's assuming that 100% of the current users upgrade in that time frame so realisticaly, they'd be adding more than that.... That, to me, is pretty big. Also, in order to turn a profit, it has been speculated, based on assumed margins, that they only need to sell 18 million or so in the upcoming year.
    01-25-13 09:25 AM
  22. Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes's Avatar
    It won't be a whole month for many markets in q1
    01-25-13 12:05 PM
  23. Sith_Apprentice's Avatar
    If they are saying an ADDITIONAL 500k in the first month, and 10million units overall, that actually isnt bad for RIM at all. Keep in mind, OS7 devices will still be the go to device in many parts of the world. So ADDING 2.5million units a quarter in sales (avg) cant hurt, and can only help. (near 7mil OS7- devices + 2.5mil BB10 = near 10mil a quarter, so 40mil for the year).
    01-25-13 12:12 PM
  24. richardat's Avatar
    OK. These kind of numbers (the iphone numbers OR the RBC numbers) won't work for RIM though. Apple was creating a new smartphone market, and there were 3 differences:
    1.no entrenched competitors getting ahead as they were building (it was in fact them surging ahead of non-existent competition)...yes I know RIM was their competition, but as history has shown, RIM really had nothing comparable to offer
    2.the app paradigm hadn't become crucial yet...it was the iphone that changed this
    3.Apple didn't need phone sales to keep the company alive

    Now, if RIM could actually overtake Apple in 2 years, then yes, that would work! Going to need to sell.....geez...a LOT (LOL) more than 10 mil. to do that though ;-)
    01-25-13 05:10 PM
  25. richardat's Avatar
    If they are saying an ADDITIONAL 500k in the first month, and 10million units overall, that actually isnt bad for RIM at all. Keep in mind, OS7 devices will still be the go to device in many parts of the world. So ADDING 2.5million units a quarter in sales (avg) cant hurt, and can only help. (near 7mil OS7- devices + 2.5mil BB10 = near 10mil a quarter, so 40mil for the year).
    Not anywhere near good enough long term however. Sales of OS7 don't help BB10 (except indirectly as possible future sales)...and won't mitigate the lack of momentum and support for such a small marketshare. Moreover, even ASSUMING, that all BB10 sales are new sales and won't cannibalize OS7 sales, OS7 sales have not been able to prevent RIM from losing money, and marketshare. OS7 sales can, at best, help stem bleeding, and give RIM more time. (side note: As i wrote a few times before, in my opinion, RIM's best bet would actually be to release absolute cheapola bb10 devices to developing nations base, (where it can be seen as revolutionary), and get the base they need that way - not a prestigious strategy, but more prestigious than bankruptcy. If they could do that, a couple years down the road, they could go after the high-end market more aggressively. In any case, OS7 is starting to show signs of becoming to erode in the other countries as well, and with the margins small in the first place, it could become non-profitable quite soon.
    01-25-13 05:18 PM
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