BlackBerry in its quest to reinvent itself, is looking for new sources of revenue as it may be considering shutting down the hardware business altogether. The Canadian firm now intends to develop a tracking system for the logistics industry that it hopes will make it profitable once again.
Searching for more revenue streams
On Thursday, the Canadian smart-phone maker unveiled BlackBerry Radar, a tracking system of use to trucking companies and fleet operators. Radar makes use of the ‘Internet of things’ platform, and aims to improve containers and trailers’ utilization and delivery times for the customers.
“BlackBerry Radar is fully integrated and provisioned, so customers can hit the ground running. Within minutes of installing our tracking device, users can access timely information on their assets to help make agile decisions that can dramatically improve an organization’s profitability,” said BlackBerry’s Senior Vice President of IoT – Derek Kuhn.
BlackBerry has been a forerunner in mobile e-mail smartphones, and Radar is its latest push to make profits from the growth it is expecting in the wireless-network connectivity in consumer and industrial products.
A couple of months back, BlackBerry unveiled cyber-security services. And in January, it unveiled software for the driverless cars, which makes use of Vehicle-to-vehicle communications technology and software that combines data from cameras, radar and other services to avoid accidents and navigate safely.
BlackBerry beats earnings expectations
Separately, Blackberry reported a stronger than expected quarter early Friday. The Canadian firm posted a loss of $0.03 per share versus analysts estimate of a $0.09 per share loss. But, it missed the revenue expectations, reporting just $487 million in revenue against $563 million expected. For the full fiscal year 2017, the Canadian firm expects positive cash flow and EBITDA
BlackBerry launched its first Android phone – the Priv – last year to stabilize the hardware business of the company that serves as bread-and-butter for it. In a note earlier this week, Goldman Sachs notes the launch of Priv “likely foreshadows that it will end its own OS development in favor of Android.”
“However, we don’t see the company succeeding in reaching sustainable profitability in hardware given it is a niche player in Android,” the analysts noted.
BlackBerry’s shares have lost more than 18% this year and 7.4% in the past 12 months. That compares with the gains of 1% for the S&P 500 index this year and a flat result in the past 12 months.
