Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) just may surprise investors, according to analysts at Raymond James. The BlackBerry maker releases its next quarterly earnings report in exactly one week, and they believe the company will come out ahead of consensus on revenue.
Expectations For Research In Motion Ltd (BBRY)
Analysts Steven Li, Tavis C. McCourt, Jonathan Lo and Daniel Toomey issued a report to investors this week with their expectations for Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB). They expect the company to report $3.7 billion in revenue and earnings per share of 7 cents. That’s ahead of the $3.4 billion consensus on revenue but behind the 9 cents per share consensus on earnings.
They maintained their market perform rating at the BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) because they believe the company’s near term financial trends are improving. They said there are “substantial” sell-in rates of the BlackBerry Z10, Q10 and Q5 around the globe. They do remain more cautious on the company in the long term because at this point it’s unclear just how much the company’s Services revenue will decline. Also they said there isn’t yet enough positive sustained sell-through data on the new BlackBerry 10 devices.
Three Areas Of Interest On Research In Motion Ltd (BBRY)
The Raymond James analysts said there will be three main things they’ll be looking for when Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) releases its report next Friday. First, they’ll be comparing sell-in versus sell-through. They’re expecting a channel fill of around 470,000, driving 8 million units and 4 million Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)’s BlackBerry 10 units, which are above consensus. However, they believe sell-through trends might have been slower than expected.
They also believe that we have not yet seen the bottom of BlackBerry subscriber losses, so they’ll be watching this number carefully. Last year the company’s biggest subscriber growth was in emerging markets, but this year, shipments to emerging markets have been declining so far. They’re estimating a loss of about 3 million subscribers for the company’s first fiscal quarter of 2014, which is the one being reported next week Friday. That’s ahead of consensus of 2.4 million subscribers lost during the quarter.
The third area they will be looking at is Services revenue. They estimate a decline of 8.6 percent year over year for the quarter being reported next week. That would be just barely in line with guidance of a single digit decline, but they believe that this will accelerate to 12.5 percent in the next quarter and 16 percent in the third fiscal quarter of 2014.
Research In Motion Ltd (BBRY)’s Upcoming Product Releases
The analysts said they’ll also be closely watching the release of a few of Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)’s products. Later this month, the BlackBerry maker will release Secure Work Space for both iOS and Android. By the beginning of July, the BlackBerry Q5 will launch in the U.K. BlackBerry Messenger will be out for iOS and Android by summer and BlackBerry Messenger Channels officially launches in the BlackBerry 10.2 update, which is expected by September or October.
