Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) sold 6.4 million devices in the fourth quarter, including Playbooks. Though company announced a surprising profit of 22 cents a share, older devices witnessed a drastic pullback in sales.
Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) sold one million Z10 devices since its launch, but analysts indicate that device sales have slowed down in Canada and the United Kingdom. Users are most likely waiting for the launch of Q10 before they make a final decision.
The BlackBerry maker plans to launch as many as six devices this year, so the full roll out will take time. The average selling price was $256 per device in the fourth quarter, which includes 6 million handheld devices and 0.4 million Playbooks. ASP for the third quarter was just $226. Based on one million unit sales, the Z10 ASP is close to $420. That is much better than most of the analysts’ expectations.
Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) sold 900K devices in the U.S., 800K in the U.K., 500K in Canada and the remaining 4.2 million units were sold in other markets. Though there isn’t enough information on the geography-wise sales of Z10, analysts assume that half the devices sold in the U.K. and Canada were based on older platforms.
Though Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) expects to break even in Q1 2014, it may churn out profits due to higher ASP. The break-even estimate is based on 50 percent increase in marketing budget that equals $750 million.
There have been several positive and negative suggestions about Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)’s share price. Berenberg Bank analysts said yesterday that the shares will tumble to $5 because the company doesn’t have a sustainable business model. Berenberg Bank said in its research report that Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) won’t be able to survive in the highly competitive smartphone market.
But if you take a simple look at the valuation, the stock seems to be underpriced. Intangible assets of Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) including patents, have a book value of $3.4 billion. The company has zero debt and $2.9 billion of cash in hand. Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)’s current market capitalization is about $8 billion, of which cash and intangible assets account for $6.3 billion. And the value of its remaining business must be more than $1.7 billion.
The stock may rise, albeit slowly, throughout the year due to phased rollout of new devices.
