There was much anticipation ahead of Blackberry’s Q4 results – announced ahead of the markets opening before the long Easter break. I understand that around 30% of the stock had been shorted. Ie everyone was betting on a downturn.
Actually, it looks as if the short sellers are disappointed (serves them right…) as the results exceeded expectations. Indeed Blackberry announced a ‘surprise’ profit of $98m (compared to last year’s loss of $125m) This was all to do with cost savings as revenues fell a massive 36% to $2.68b.
All eyes were on Z10 sales which again surprised with 1m shifted in just 3 weeks. All of that ahead of the US launch last week. They also managed to sell 6m of their ‘old’ smartphones and an amazing 370,000 Playbooks.
On the downside, they lost 3m subscribers to take the base to 76m. You would have thought that everyone that was going to ditch Blackberry had done so by now leaving just stalwarts like me. I’m still waiting for the Q10 but it looks like I won’t get my fingers on its qwerty keyboard for at least three months. CEO Thorsten Heins says that a mid-tier device will be launched later in the year as well as ‘a higher end device for the holidays’. Does he mean a BB10 powered tablet?
All eyes now on how the stock will react. It’s up over 3% pre-market.
Before you ask, and in line with good disclosure, I sold all my Blackberry shares having bagged a 100%+ gain since I bought in last September. Might well live to regret that but can’t be too greedy