Jason Del Rey

Recent Posts by Jason Del Rey

BlackBerry Q2 Results Just About as Awful as Expected

blackberry_sinkhole

No huge surprises here: BlackBerry’s second-quarter fiscal 2014 earnings report is in, and it’s just about as bad as BlackBerry warned last week, when it announced preliminary results and layoffs for 4,500 employees.

Revenue for the quarter was about $1.6 billion, a 49 percent drop from the $3.1 billion it registered last quarter, as the company had indicated it would be in last week’s guidance; prior to that, Wall Street had been expecting revenue of $3.04 billion.

The company’s adjusted loss from continuing operations, however, was slightly better than Wall Street estimates, on average: $248 million, or 47 cents a share, which was on the low side of the 47-cent-to-51-cent range that BlackBerry had warned of last week. Wall Street analysts were expecting a loss of 49 cents a share.

The company’s GAAP loss from continuing operations was $965 million, including a giant, mostly non-cash charge of $934 million related to poor sales of its new Z10 phone.

“We understand how some of the activities we are going through create uncertainty, but we remain a financially strong company with $2.6 billion in cash and no debt,” CEO Thorsten Heins said in a statement. “We are focused on our targeted markets, and are committed to completing our transition quickly in order to establish a more focused and efficient company.”

This will most likely be all the news from the company today, since it said earlier this week that it would cancel the earnings call it usually holds with Wall Street analysts.

But it should be an eventful next month for the erstwhile smartphone innovator. Earlier this week, BlackBerry signed a letter of intent to sell its business for $4.7 billion, or $9 a share, to a consortium led by Fairfax Financial Holdings, which currently owns about 10 percent of the company.

Still, that is not a binding agreement and may not be until Nov. 4, the two sides said last week. In the meantime, BlackBerry is free to entertain other offers, though it would have to give Fairfax a $157 million payout if it finds and accepts another proposal.

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