- During an investor day (transcript) held yesterday afternoon following its enterprise announcements, BlackBerry (BBRY -0.2%) guided for FY16 (ends Feb. '16) services revenue of $800M, down 50% from an expected FY15 level of $1.6B. The company's total FY16 revenue consensus is currently at $3.78B (nearly flat Y/Y),
- As it is, services revenue has been dropping due to consumer fee cuts, hardware installed based declines, and enterprise promotions. Services was 46% of August quarter revenue, down from 54% a year earlier; BlackBerry's total revenue fell 42% during this time.
- BlackBerry is counting on hardware stabilization and software growth to help offset the services decline; software revenue is expected to double in FY16 to $500M. Long-term, it hopes newer enterprise services (such as those announced yesterday) and Project Ion will boost services revenue.
- Raymond James' Steven Li (Market Perform) notes the FY16 services guidance was below the firm's estimate of $1.14B, and "reduces the margin for error on BBRY’s target of doubling software revenues next year to offset the [services] decline and maintain cash flow breakeven." He also thinks an FQ3 revenue consensus of $965M remains too high; RJ forecasts $899M.
- On the other hand, Li declares the Samsung deal bolsters BES12's credibility as a cross-platform enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution. He's also pleased with John Chen's disclosure than a Fortune 10 client plans to use BES12 to manage non-BlackBerry devices; "almost all" of BlackBerry's initial 100+ BES12 deployments are believed to be for managing BlackBerrys.
- Shares are near breakeven in early trading. They rose 7% yesterday.
- Update (2:35PM ET): Shares are now down 6.4%.