BlackBerry Beats Apple

BlackBerry is coming back! On Wall Street, that is, beating Apple in the last six months. BlackBerry’s shares have gained 37.38 percent compared to 9.40 percent of Apple.

BlackBerry Vs Apple Shares

Company 6-months 5-years
BlackBerry(BBRY) 37.38% 28.13%*
Apple (AAPL) 9.40* 60.95
SPDR QQQ (QQQ) 11.31 110.68
*doesn’t include dividends.

Source: Finance.Yahoo.com 9/21/17

BlackBerry’s Wall Street comeback brings back memories of the 1990s and the early 2000s when BlackBerry, going under the name Research in Motion (RIMM), was beating Apple big time.

That’s when the company excelled in all corporate functions. In the social area, it generated thousands of jobs; and contributed resources to the Canadian economy and the local Waterloo community.

In the managerial area, it executed a smartmarketing strategy by churning out a series of BlackBerry products for business users and eventually for the mass market.

In the entrepreneurial area, it offered users innovative products that beat traditional cellphone products.

Over time, however, the company lagged behind the competition in the entrepreneurial function. It failed to come up with radically new products to compete with the iPhone and the iPad from Apple; and Android powered phones from Samsung, LG, and HTC. And its BlackBerry Storm and Torch failed to generate buzz among users.

My recent book The Ten Golden Rules Of Leadership is published by AMACOM, and can be found here. Further, RIMM was slow to introduce innovative apps, widgets, and games that come with Apple and Google smartphones.

The rest is history. Revenues and earnings collapsed quarter after quarter, and the company that changed the course of mobile devices was reduced to a software maker, striving to stay relevant in a rapidly changing technology universe.

BlackBerry’s stock plunged from a high of $140 in 2008, to low single digits a couple of years ago, before rebounding to upper single digits in the last six months—beating Apple.

BlackBerry Vs Apple Financials

Company PEG Ratio Return on Assets Debt to Equity
BlackBerry 32.25 -1.34 29.55
Apple 1.43 11.52 82

Source: Finance.Yahoo.com 9/21/17

Company Revenues Profit Margin
BlackBerry $1.14B 11.80%
Apple $223.51B 26.84
Source: Finance.Yahoo.com 9/21/17

What caused BlackBerry’s turnaround on Wall Street?

Certainly not its financials, which are no match for Apple’s—see tables.

Still, some investors may have been impressed by the recent Gartner's Critical Capabilities for High-Security Mobility Management report which gave the company a high score for its software. Other investors may have thought that all the bad news is already discounted by the market, and went bargain hunting into BlackBerry stock, driving it higher.

Likewise, other investors may have thought that all the good news was already in hand concerning Apple’s stock, and started taking profits from Apple’s stock.

In the end, only time will tell whether BlackBerry’s Wall Street win is just a blip or something more serious.