BlackBerry (BBRY) will report earnings tomorrow morning before the opening bell for the quarter ended in August.
The Street expects the company to report a loss of $0.05 per share on revenues of $394 million. For the current quarter, ending in November, the sell side expects another loss of $0.05 per share on revenues of $396 million.
Just yesterday, BlackBerry boss John Chen talked about the progress the company has made in its turnaround process over the last few years. He said about a third of the turnaround remained to complete.
He added, "We have made investment over a billion-plus, all in software, all in security, and now we need to execute it."
Wow, a billion dollars just isn't what it used to be, huh?
Wall Street is more focused on what BlackBerry will do with its hardware unit, which has been a major drag on earnings (lack thereof, technically speaking) the last several years after the company lost out to the likes of Samsung and Apple (AAPL) in the smartphone wars. Chen insists neither the hardware unit nor any other company assets are for sale, but he is hopeful to still monetize those assets including the hardware assets. (Apple is part of TheStreet's Action Alerts PLUS portfolio.)
How he hopes to bring those clunkers back is beyond me. Not only does he have to bring them back but he has to make them financially viable as well going forward. No small task, no?
Last month, the company announced a debt restructuring plan that will partially pay off its debt combined with a restructuring of the rest. That should, at least, help the company reduce its interest burden going forward. A good move by Chen.
Having said that, unless and until BlackBerry finds a way to either monetize the hardware part of its business (bring back to profitability) or then hive it off via a sale, actual earnings seem to be nowhere on the horizon yet.
I remain agnostic on the shares of BlackBerry.
Good luck whichever way you are positioned going into BlackBerry earnings -- long, short or straddling the fence as yours truly is.
