One of the biggest winners on Tuesday happened to be a former smartphone manufacturer that’s fallen out of favor in comparison to Samsung and Apple. After what’s been a lengthy period of relative obscurity for the once well-known brand, BlackBerry (NYSE: BB) shot up significantly after announcing a major partnership with Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) on a new joint-venture project.
In what was the single best day for the company’s stock price in years, BlackBerry surged after signing a multi-year deal with Amazon Web Services to develop what it calls an “Intelligent Vehicle Data Platform.” This platform, also called an IVY for short by BlackBerry, lets automakers read various sensor data inputs from cars, which should improve the overall performance of cloud-connected vehicles.
“BlackBerry IVY is a scalable, cloud-connected software platform that will allow automakers to provide a consistent and secure way to read vehicle sensor data, normalize it, and create actionable insights from that data both locally in the vehicle and in the cloud. Automakers can use this information to create responsive in-vehicle services that enhance driver and passenger experiences,” read the official BlackBerry press release. “Modern cars and trucks are built with thousands of parts from many different suppliers, with each vehicle model comprising a unique set of proprietary hardware and software components.”
BlackBerry, which used to be a big name in the smartphone world, has since rebranded itself more towards the IT and data software market. More specifically, the company’s been making a big push to get automakers to incorporate its cloud-computing tools. BlackBerry has had some success with Volkswagen and Toyota, both of which have become BlackBerry’s new customers. It’s most recent partnership has been with an electric car maker known as Xpeng, which has become a hot stock in recent months.
Shares of BlackBerry shot up as much as 46% on Tuesday morning following the news. However, traders quickly locked in their gains shortly after, with the stock ending the day down to just a 16% gain for the day. Even so, it’s still the highest BlackBerry’s stock has been so far in 2020.
According to its recent quarterly results, BlackBerry managed to slightly surpass analyst expectations, reporting an earnings-per-share (EPS) of $0.11, in comparison to the $0.09 Wall Street was expecting. Revenue growth is up around 6.1% year-over-year as well, a reasonable amount, but still relatively low for a potentially fast-growing tech company. While BlackBerry could end up staging a comeback in the years to come if its automobile software business takes off, it has an incredibly long way to go if it wants to recover to its earlier highs. Most Wall Street analysts covering the stock remain neutral, still more or less unconvinced about BlackBerry’s potential.
Blackberry Company Profile
BlackBerry, once known for being the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, is now exclusively a software provider with a stated goal of end-to-end secure communication for enterprises. The firm provides endpoint management and protection to enterprises, specializing in regulated industries like government, as well as embedded software to the automotive, medical, and industrial markets. – Warrior Trading News
