The BlackBerry – Apple acquisition rumor that went out yesterday pushed the Canadian smartphone maker’s stock up by over 6% in the final 30 minutes of trading. Though some are speculating that the news of BlackBerry’s acquisition by Apple is true, the possibility of this seems a little low as similar rumors have been around for some time.
U.S. government might want Apple to buy BlackBerry
Sean Udall, CIO of Quantum Trading Strategies, suggested in an interview with Benzinga that some governments, including the U.S., might want the iPhone maker to acquire BlackBerry after figuring out that the Canadian company might not be able to improve its growth and could possibly collapse in the future.
In response to the rumors, several Twitter users posted their views about Apple acquiring BlackBerry. One claimed that more plausible candidates for the takeover could be Samsung, Lenovo, Microsoft or even Google. Some claimed that the acquisition of BlackBerry by Apple seems highly improbable as such a decision would be unusual from the iPhone company’s perspective. Moreover, Apple buying BlackBerry would mean the biggest deal ever for the iPhone maker, which has been fairly conservative regarding its cash resources.
Apple-BlackBerry makes little sense
Even though at one point BlackBerry put itself on sale, it struggled to find a suitable buyer. Since John Chen has been appointed as CEO in August 2013, the smartphone maker has been witnessing a kind of turnaround, although some investors have opined that more needs to be done on the company’s part to register any “real” growth.
Nonetheless, these sorts of rumors have been aired in the past as well. In January 2014, a report suggested that Samsung was looking to buy BlackBerry for $7.5 billion. Following the news, BlackBerry’s stock gained 30%, though this hike was offset by a statement released afterwards which indicated that the Canadian smartphone maker was in no way involved in merger talks with Samsung. Not long after this, another report alleged that LG Electronics was aiming to acquire BlackBerry.
Thus, a lot of doubts can be placed on the integrity of such reports, which have started to spring up a lot in recent months. Though BlackBerry possesses the most sought-after security systems, its acquisition by Apple makes little sense as the iPhone maker is already well-established in the enterprise market.
