BlackBerry shares fall as Home Depot turns to iPhones for its executives
By The Canadian Press - Monday, February 11, 2013 - 0 Comments
TORONTO – Shares of BlackBerry (TSX:BB) dropped 4.5 per cent on Monday after retailer…
TORONTO – Shares of BlackBerry (TSX:BB) dropped 4.5 per cent on Monday after retailer Home Depot confirmed that executives will receive Apple’s iPhone to replace their old BlackBerry models.
The Waterloo, Ont.-based company lost 75 cents per share to close at $15.76 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
A spokesman for Home Depot in the United States confirmed that nearly 10,000 executives, managers and other staff at its corporate offices will receive iPhones.
A representative for Home Depot Canada says the change will also apply to Canadian executives.
BlackBerry, which changed its name from Research In Motion, has been struggling to keep its smartphone user base in recent years against a growing number of competitors, which also include devices that use the Android operating system.
In January, the company debuted its new BlackBerry Z10 touch screen device, which was released onto the Canadian market last week. A keypad version of the device will arrive in April.
The U.S. release of the new BlackBerry phone is slated for sometime next month.
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Research In Motion expected to post losses
By David Friend, The Canadian Press - Wednesday, September 26, 2012 at 5:18 PM - 0 Comments
TORONTO – After several months of technical setbacks, layoffs and an eroding market share,…
TORONTO – After several months of technical setbacks, layoffs and an eroding market share, BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion could get a mild reprieve from its compounding troubles on Thursday when it issues its second-quarter financial report.
But analysts say that if investors heave a sigh of relief, it won’t be because RIM delivered a home run, but simply because the bad news, and its quarterly losses, didn’t worsen as much as expected.
“The stock has fallen so far that any slight bit of good news is going to be good for (it),” said Neeraj Monga, an analyst at Veritas Investment Research Corp.
Considering the Waterloo, Ont.-based company’s perilous situation, what defines “good” is relative.
This year, RIM has watched its market share in North America dramatically fall to about four per cent as the BlackBerry became an afterthought in the face of Apple’s iPhone and the Samsung Galaxy S3.
And while other companies debuted new devices, RIM was forced to push the launch of its BlackBerry 10 operating system and new phones into next year, missing the crucial back-to-school and holiday shopping seasons.
The company has also made significant reductions across its operations, closing facilities, severing ties with certain manufacturers and announcing plans to lay off 5,000 workers across its global operations in an effort to save $1 billion by the end of its fiscal year.
