Securities firm RBC Capital Markets has cut in half its estimate of the number of BlackBerry Passport and BlackBerry Classic handsets which the company had managed to sell in the previous quarter.
According to the securities firm, they estimate that BlackBerry managed to sell a mere 700,000 units of both models, which is half of the original 1.4 million expected.
RBC’s analysts cite figures of 3.2 million Passports and Classic handsets being sold throughout the fiscal year of 2016, which is another downward spiral based on its previous estimate of 6.5 million units.
[table style=”table-striped”]
| BlackBerry handset sales by year from 2009 | |
| 2009 | 34 million |
| 2010 | 47 million |
| 2011 | 52 million |
| 2012 | 34 million |
| 2013 | 19 million |
| 2014 | 8 million |
| 2015 | 3 million estimated |
| all figures rounded to the nearest million source | |
| source | |
[/table]
BlackBerry CEO John Chen remains upbeat about the situation, however, as he has stated that he can get the company making a profit again when it comes to handsets, although whether this is by choice or is something that the company is forced into is a matter of conjecture.
“I can only make iPhone so much more secure, but I can’t make it as secure as a BlackBerry device,†Chen said.
“If you look at the US Army, they’re still rolling out all BlackBerry. If I tell them there are no more phones, I lose that account. The question is how do you make phones profitable at the volume those people represent?â€Â
BlackBerry has been recommended by RBC to remain focused on software, rather than hardware. Speaking to its clients, RBC mentioned,
“We’re slashing our estimates on BlackBerry hardware units, but it’s not the focus anyway.â€Â
RBC analysts retained their bullish stance on the company owing to its software sales and assigned a Sector Perform rating to the Ccompany with a price target of $11.
