Tag: blackberry trends

John Chen is feeling a good deal better about the company’s prospects regardless of slumping sales.

Outspoken BlackBerry CEO, John Chen, has spent his time at the helm of the company showing that he is not afraid to do things differently in order to allow the Canadian handset maker the opportunity to claw its way back into relevance and profitability and now, despite its slumping sales, it looks as though things have, indeed, been turning to a positive direction.

It now looks as though this has been only a time of sowing seeds that he now feels will spike mobile device sales.

That said, the latest sales results that BlackBerry has revealed have shown that there is still a long way to go before the company can truly feel that it is out of the woods. Indeed, it seems as though the direction that the company has taken is toward a positive turnaround, but at the same time, the efforts remain at the ground level. The genuine growth has yet to kick in. These latest announcements have caused the company’s stock to take a rollercoaster’s path, as analysts struggled to process the true meaning of the good and bad earning news.

There were a number of very important points that were revealed in the recent BlackBerry announcements.

While the sales from the company’s fourth quarter had plummeted by 32 percent when compared to the same quarter the year before, reaching only $660 million (even managing to miss the lowest estimates of $783.1 million for that quarter), there were areas in which the company still did very well. For instance, it sold massive sale of patents and took in a tax recovery of $29 million which boosted the company into an adjusted profit position. In fact, its profit was a boost of $0.04 per share. This represented the second consecutive quarter in which it managed to beat its bottom line after having undergone six painful quarterly losses in a row.

Chen was very positive and spoke to shareholders and analysts during his BlackBerry earnings call, saying that after the company had struggled to the point of nearly drowning, its “financial house is in order”. He also pointed out that the changes that he has made since he took the head position of the company have now started to bear fruit.

The President was recently reported to have held his flight in order to retrieve his handset after having forgotten it.

Reporters at the White House recently reported that President Obama had been seen getting back off the Marine One helicopter, only moments after boarding, so that he could return to the official residence, as it seems that his BlackBerry had been forgotten.

A New York Times reporter tweeted that he explained that the delay was the result of having to fetch the smartphone.

Other news reports have also revealed that the President delayed the flight in the helicopter after having forgotten his BlackBerry. After this story became quite large, particularly over social media, Obama addressed reporters, asking them “Didn’t you guys ever forget something?”

Obama has proven to be one of the most loyal of BlackBerry users, which is likely a matter of pride for the company.

At a time in which the Canadian handset manufacturer has entirely shifted its focus to the business and government markets – its original position – and has left the consumer market behind, the fact that President Obama has remained a holdout throughout the last few years in which the company, formerly known as RIM (Research In Motion), has seen considerable struggles, particularly on the consumer side.

The company has never ceased to keep up its concentration and reputation when it comes to mobile security, and this is likely one of the features that the president finds to be the most appealing.

Back in March, Jay Carney, who had been a spokesperson at the time, explained that the White House had stated that it would be keeping up their use of BlackBerry smartphones and would not take part in a Google Inc. pilot program that would have had them using smartphones that were based on Android software.

President Obama is far from the only head of state who is still using a BlackBerry. Recently, others have also been seen with their smartphones equipped with the distinctive QWERTY keyboard. They include the United Kingdom’s David Cameron, as well as Angela Merkel from Germany. It looks as though 2015 will be another defining year for the company.