BlackBerry: Not just your middle school cell phone company
From a struggling smartphone company… to an up-and-coming cybersecurity company. BlackBerry now generates over 90% of its revenue from software and services. Even better, 81% of its sales a recurring which means they have plenty of cash flowing in. The company reported profits and sales on Friday and killed Wall Street’s expectations. The stock was up 15% following the news.
Oh, and they do other things… and CEO John Chen said the company’s most significant success this quarter stemmed from the connected and autonomous car market. That business unit saw growth of 30%. And BlackBerry is working to gain more ground in the automotive market – even teaming up Chinese search engine Baidu to develop self-driving cars.
In 2016… BlackBerry stopped making phones and outsourced the production of devices with the BlackBerry name still attached. And now, the company is all-in on software. The switch from phones to software has the company’s stock up over 60%. Not bad for a company we all thought had died a long time ago!