BlackBerry stated in its earnings report that its smartphone shipment dropped 1.6 million units in the second quarter of fiscal 2014 ending May 31st. However, when compared from the previous quarter, shipments of smartphones surged 23% against the record low 1.8 million units.
BlackBerry 10 sold this quarter
Total smartphone shipped in the second quarter declined 76% compared to 6.8 million units shipped in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. Shipments for BlackBerry (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) dropped for the eight consecutive quarters on a year over year basis.
Another positive for the company was,second quarter marked the first time, when the majority of BlackBerry 10 devices were sold and rest were BlackBerry 7, according to a report from Business Insider.
BlackBerry received positive ratings from many analysts after posting small profit. Evercore Partners have upgraded price target on the stock from $9 to $10. The analysts at Evercore are holding high hopes for the company’s smartphone business. The Canadian smartphone maker recently entered into a deal with Amazon.com Inc to port Android apps on BlackBerry platform. Another analyst firm, Raymond James upgraded the price on the stock from $9.50 to $10.
BBM and QNX to drive growth
Recently, GMP analysts upgraded BlackBerry stock to Hold on the back of better execution and slower than expected decline in subscribers and service margins. Analyst Deepak kaushal said that the management has grabbed another opportunity to enhance and prove the value of BlackBerry products and services to its core customers.
According to Kaushal, though the subscription levels are narrowing, core group of 30 million users remains intact and would continue to use BlackBerry phones and services. BlackBerry messenger has a user base of 85 million from which the management is targeting $100 million revenue in financial year 2016. QNX platform is, also, penetrating deeper in the mobile payments, healthcare and cloud services. BlackBerry may return to profitable path on the back of stable devices revenues and enhanced monetization of its software services, believe the analyst.
Kaushal thinks that there are many favorable developments that reflect the next step of CEO John Chen is worth watching, but cautions that the company is still on the edge and faces “high risk in transition to a smaller niche software and services company.”
