- Believing the company will post a "sizable miss" for FQ4 (the February quarter) and that losses will widen in FY16 (ends Feb. '16), Goldman's Simona Jankowski has downgraded BlackBerry (BBRY) to Sell, and cut her target by $1 to $9.
- Jankowski sees BlackBerry posting FY16 software revenue of $426M, well below a target of $500M (twice FY15's $250M); she cites Goldman surveys that "show very low buying intentions" for BES12, and notes the target implies BlackBerry will "leapfrog" market leaders such as VMware/AirWatch, MobileIron, and Good Technology in just a year, something viewed as unlikely "given the competitors’ much better traction."
- She expects services revenue (already forecast by BlackBerry to fall 50% in FY16) to drop 47% in FY16. "Significant upside" is seen for hardware revenue, but Jankowski dismisses hardware growth as "empty calories" due to a lack of related profits. Her FY16 EPS estimate of -$0.26 is well below a -$0.08 consensus.
- Goldman upgraded BlackBerry to Buy on Nov. 29, 2012 - the company was still known as RIM back then - when shares were at $11.10. FQ4 results arrive on March 27.