“On May 30, Zacks Investment Research downgraded BlackBerry Limited (BBRY) to a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell),” Zacks Equity Research writes.
“A persistent decline in smartphone sales, lack of innovative product launches and wide losses have resulted in the downgrade action,” Zacks writes. “Moreover, BlackBerry’s decision to retrench workers on a global scale further reflects the company’s inability to cope up with the spiraling expenses.”
“In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, BlackBerry sold 1.6 million smartphones against 3.4 million in the same period last year,” Zacks writes. ” At the end of the reported period, BlackBerry held a mere 0.3% market share.”
Zacks writes, “Notably, ever since Apple’s iPhone hit the market, BlackBerry and Nokia Corp. NOK have been facing intense competitive pressure.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: DCW is almost ready to dispense with the “Walking.”
[Apple’s iPhone] is kind of one more entrant into an already very busy space with lots of choice for consumers. But in terms of a sort of a sea-change for BlackBerry, I would think that’s overstating it. — Jim Balsillie, former RIM half-CEO, February 12, 2007
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bill” for the heads up.]
SEE ALSO:
Apple iPhone vs. BlackBerry vs. Google’s Android: There are many lessons for investors – May 28, 2015
Beleaguered BlackBerry axes smartphone employees – May 26, 2015
Losing the Signal: The inside story of how Apple’s revolutionary iPhone crippled BlackBerry – May 22, 2015
Beleaguered Blackberry gets caught tweeting from an Apple iPhone – January 13, 2015
Beleaguered BlackBerry: We’re not about phones anymore – September 12, 2014
Ousted half-CEO Lazaridis to step down from beleaguered BlackBerry board on May 1 – March 28, 2013
Former RIM half-CEO Jim Balsillie dumps all BlackBerry shares – February 14, 2013
Beleaguered RIM’s half-CEO lying; BlackBerry 10 OS is a failure that won’t be able to compete, source says – December 22, 2011
RIM’s half-CEO Lazaridis walks out of BBC interview – April 13, 2011
I think Blackberry should have kept the name ‘Research in Motion’ to better reflect the new enterprise focus on mobile security.
‘Search for Demotion’ sounds even more appropriate to me….
Wow…how the world changed in 8 yrs…
maybe they should break it up and give the money back to the shareholders….oops, too late!
Can’t Blackbery take a hint?
That’s not “intense competitive pressure” so much as a total routing of Blackberry beaten into the dirt. To be competitive one at least has to be somewhere actually significant in the game. Rounding Error Flunkies is all they are now.
I thought they might have had a chance when they decided to switch to QNX, but then they wasted so much time with that stupid Playbook ($142 for 64GB on Amazon) that they weren’t able to get their QNX based phones out in time for the holiday season. I don’t know if that would have saved them, but It couldn’t have hurt. Now they just seem to be in a perpetual orbit around the drain.
DCW-HTTM (Headed To The Morgue)
🖖😀⌚️
Who is Blackberry?
Strong sell 7 years ago, this is news?
BBRY was worth over $83B in June 2008, Now it’s less than $10B. It didn’t take a lot of brainpower to see the iPhone as a threat in 2007, yet RIM was paralyzed. They weren’t a computer company, they specialized in what was considered back then Smart phones and security. They hoped that their reputation for security would get them through a rough patch, it didn’t. To add insult to injury a study conducted a year or two ago showed that Apple’s security was better.
I feel sorry for anyone working there. Blackberry is such an obviously dying company that anyone still employed there must be in a situation where they can’t easily leave. Which makes the layoffs all the worse.
Seriously, morale there must be the worst you can imagine.
——RM
This isn’t a joy to watch. I wish Blackberry had more to offer. But the tech future is relentlessly inventive.