{"id":16937,"date":"2018-10-01T08:23:54","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T08:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=16937"},"modified":"2018-10-01T08:23:54","modified_gmt":"2018-10-01T08:23:54","slug":"blackberrys-comeback-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=16937","title":{"rendered":"BlackBerry’s comeback continues"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Blackberry\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

BlackBerry’s transformation from struggling smartphone company into a burgeoning leader in cybersecurity software and connected cars is on track.<\/h2>\n

The company now generates more than 90% of its total revenue from software and services. And 81% of those sales are recurring. In other words, BlackBerry is no longer subject to the fickle tastes of consumers and has hitched its wagon to corporate customers. <\/p>\n

BlackBerry<\/span> (BB<\/a><\/span>)<\/span> reported profits and sales Friday morning for its latest quarter that topped Wall Street’s forecasts. The stock was up more than 15% in late morning trading on the news. <\/p>\n

CEO John Chen, speaking to CNN Friday, said the company’s biggest successes this quarter were in the connected and autonomous car market, with revenue growth of about 30% for the business unit that includes the QNX software business for cars. <\/p>\n

Chen said BlackBerry is working hard to win more customers in the automotive market, pointing to a deal it announced in January with Chinese search engine giant Baidu<\/span> (BIDU<\/a><\/span>)<\/span> to jointly develop self-driving cars. <\/p>\n

The company, under Chen, realized a few years ago that it was a losing battle making devices that generated razor-thin profit margins at a time when Apple<\/span> (AAPL<\/a><\/span>)<\/span> and Samsung<\/span> (SSNLF<\/a><\/span>)<\/span> dominate the smartphone race. <\/p>\n

That’s why BlackBerry decided in 2016 to stop making its own phones<\/a> and outsource the production of devices with the BlackBerry name on them to other manufacturers. <\/p>\n

Since then, BlackBerry has gone all-in on software. <\/p>\n

BlackBerry hoping for a new ‘Spark’<\/h2>\n

So what’s next? Chen said he’s hopeful that BlackBerry’s new Spark security platform, which is kind of like instant messaging on steroids, can make a bigger presence in the health care market. Spark integrates video chat, texts and other forms media. <\/p>\n

BlackBerry is targeting health to help the company expand beyond its core markets of transportation, governments and financial services companies. <\/p>\n

Investors are pleased with the turnaround too. BlackBerry’s stock is up more than 60% since Chen took over nearly five years ago. That’s solid, but it has lagged the performance of Apple as well as the Nasdaq. <\/p>\n

Still, Chen has cleaned up BlackBerry’s balance sheet. The company now has $2.4 billion in cash and just $740 million in long-term debt. Rumors about BlackBerry going out of business are no longer running rampant the way they were before Chen joined. <\/p>\n

BlackBerry’s board is happy with Chen’s leadership as well. BlackBerry announced in March that it was extending Chen’s contract through November 2023. <\/p>\n

That may also put to rest some of the rumors that Chen was only going to stick around long enough to sell BlackBerry to a larger rival. <\/p>\n

CNNMoney (New York) <\/span> First published September 28, 2018: 10:41 AM ET<\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BlackBerry’s transformation from struggling smartphone company into a burgeoning leader in cybersecurity software and connected cars is on track. The company now generates more than 90% of its total revenue from software and services. And 81% of those sales are recurring. In other words, BlackBerry is no longer subject to the fickle tastes of consumers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":16938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}