T-Mobile USA stops stocking beleaguered BlackBerry’s phones

13 years ago

“Shares in BlackBerry Ltd fell more than 6 percent on Wednesday on doubts about a $4.7 billion bid to take the smartphone maker private, and after a big U.S. carrier said it would stop stocking BlackBerry smartphones in its stores,” Alastair Sharp and Sinead Carew report for Reuters. “In an announcement that highlighted the faded relevance of the company that pioneered on-the-go email, T-Mobile US Inc said it was no longer efficient to keep BlackBerry devices in its stores.”

“The announcement from T-Mobile, which competes aggressively on price and is better known for consumers than for business customers, followed BlackBerry’s news that it is pulling back from the consumer market, where it has bled market share to Apple Inc’s iPhone and devices using Google Inc’s Android software,” Sharp and Carew report. “BlackBerry, which put itself on the block in August, on Monday accepted a tentative $9 a share offer from a mostly Canadian consortium led by domestic insurer Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd.”

“BlackBerry says its second-quarter results will feature slumping sales, a big operating loss and hefty job cuts. It reports results on Friday, but canceled plans for a conference call with investors because of the Fairfax bid,” Sharp and Carew report. “BlackBerry’s Nasdaq-listed shares ended the day at $8.01, almost a dollar below the Fairfax group’s offer price… Contract electronic manufacturer Jabil Circuit, which counts BlackBerry as its second largest customer, said it is very likely it will part ways with the company, which could take between 28 and 34 cents out of its 2014 earnings per share.”

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