BlackBerry 4th Quarter and Year End Earnings Call Coles Notes

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Hey everyone.  I will attempt to summarize any interesting things that are said in the earnings call.

Here we go…………….

  • Mike L has decided to retire from BlackBerry all together, Thor has started the call with some praises and thanks
  • Returned to an operating profit in the 4th Quarter
  • Thor is going over all the management and executive changes in BlackBerry over the last year, it really is stunning how much change happened
  • BlackBerry truly is a lean and mean fighting machine
  • Now touting the new App Developer program.  Shout out to Alec Saunders team!!!
  • 70% of apps in BB World are Native
  • Strong download demand in BB World and revenues for devs are similar to the other leading platforms
  • 55% of Z10 owners are coming form other platforms, this is HUGE
  • 31 petabytes of traffic through BB infrastructure every month.
  • Started year at 2.1 Billion and now they have 2.9 Billion
  • This is still just the starting line, not the finish line
  • As an aside, Thor is doing really really well.  You can tell he is very very happy!!
  • BlackBerry 10 made a strong entry with 1 million units sold in Q4
  • Q10 first lab entry was Late Feb
  • Q10 will be available in April
  • Z10 demand was better than expected, way better
  • Production of z10 was increased in latter portion of the quarter
  • The launch numbers in the USA have been BETTER than expected
  • Thor just ripped the people who complain about no line ups.
  • Lower cost (curve type) devices are coming
  • There will be new programs and services launching this year that continue to generate services. (think BBM, licencing, cross over apps etc)
  • Now that BB10 is launched and successful, they will be stepping up the search for licencing opportunities.  They now have a solid product to sell
  • Thor is so pumped in this call
  • Thor says that this is NOT a 1 or 2 quarter game.  This is a 5 to 10 year game
  • THOR GIVES A SINCERE THANKS TO YOU THE BLACKBERRY FAITHFUL
  • Ok Thor is now off the phone.  He sounded very very confident on this call.  This was his best call to date.  You can tell in his voice that he is pumped and excited.  The results BlackBerry has posted, wow, to think there were a HUGE amount of people that thought they would be sold off by todays date!!
  • Brian Bidulka is going through some number summaries now
  • QUESTION TIME
  • Marketing is going to increase by 50% in the coming weeks/months
  • The loss in subscribers is mostly coming from the pre-paid market, not Enterprise
  • Seems Thor is really counting on big sales of the Q10.  The installed BlackBerry user bases is perhaps waiting to check out the Q10
  • So given that the Q10 might be holding back some guaranteed sales, the sales of 1 Million Z10’s is all the more impressive
  • Many questions seem to indicated that BlackBerry is being very conservative with their forward looking estimates.  Better than being too bullish I guess….
  • Basically Thor is saying the Z10 was the harder sell which is why they started with it.  The Q10 will sell more easily.
  • About 75% sell though.  Wow very good
  • “Curve” type device coming in the Fall timeframe

And we are done!!!

Overall a very solid earnings report and call.  BlackBerry executed where they needed to and show a solid first step into the rebuilding process.  The next quarter will be more telling of the big picture outlook as it will include a whole quarter of basically full global sales.

Oh and as of 9:00 am EST, the stock is up 1.4% in pre-market.  This is at least an indication that the street was happy/pleased with todays results.  We will see what happens throughout the day as the industry processes and interprets the results

 

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