Research In Motion Limited (USA)(NASDAQ:RIMM) is
suddenly attracting a lot of interest from analysts some of whom are upgrading
the stock and raising its target price and others who feel that the company may
not be able to sustain itself in the face of competitors who offer subsidised
services.
A lot of it is an outcome of the company's imminent
launch of its new operating system BB10, which has been receiving attention
from network carriers.
Peter Misek of Jefferies & Co raised his rating on
the shares to Hold from Underperform while the target price has been raised to
$10 from $5 earlier.
On the other hand James Faucette of Pacific Crest
maintained his Underperform rating on the stock and said that companies like Amazon.com,
Inc.(NASDAQ:AMZN) and Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG) which not only offer their
handsets at lower costs, but are also able to tie up with network providers to
offer their services at cheaper rates, pose a substantial threat to the
company.
Google's Nexus 4 smartphone was out of supply almost as
soon as it hit the stores due to the pricing strategy adopted by Google and its
network partners.
Can RIM compete with that?
Faucette analysed: If service subsidies become
prevalent, it could hurt RIM’s service business. If declines in the service business
were to accelerate, the key remaining bull case on the stock would be
dramatically undermined. Let us be clear: we do not have a firm opinion on the
quality of upcoming BB10 devices and OS (although we harbour our doubts). On
the other hand, we are absolutely convinced that, regardless of its quality,
the structure of the industry means that there is virtually no chance that BB10
will meaningfully change RIM’s trajectory.
Shares in RIM rose about 4 percent on Tuesday.
How can Faucette say that even if the BB10 OS and devices are amazing, it won't have any affect on sales or RIM's longterm health?!
ReplyDeleteThat's like saying, even though this new car gets a 100 miles/gallon, can go 0-60 mph in 3 secs and is by far the best auto on the market, I believe no one will buy it?!
What a joke of an article and a joke of a so called analyst that no one has heard about. I have an Sg3 since android is the best on the market right now. I will be leaving android for the best OS when BB10 comes out since it wll be the BEST. QNX is a POWERFUL OS which is in the SPACESTATION , SPEED TRAINS , AUTO's , POWER PLANTS and much more. Soon you will have that POWER in a smartphone. I'm sorry but I want a POWER OS that NASA would use.
DeleteI have a playbook and have been running its version of QNX for a year now. I can definitely say it is very powerful. I've run Android on the Playbook OS and it works seamlessly. I doubt that iOS or Android will ever be that powerful. Watch the recently released videos of BB10, it is slick and looks very powerful.
Deletewho the heck is James Faucette anyway??? And who is Pacific Crest? Kills me how these analysts are called/contacted and then quoted as if they were some world renowned source....BB fills a different niche than Google and Amazon and even Apple to a degree. That is why there is only one Blackberry and not several like Android.
ReplyDeleteWhat is that "niche", that they fill?
DeleteEvery fund manager is entitled to being off-target in his opinions.
ReplyDeleteI speculate that he real reason why he makes these opinions is to protect all the hedged positions he has taken in the stock.
Agreed, Peter Misek does the same thing, spreading negative rumors and presenting them as 'analysis' to lazy investors and journalists. These guys are either incompetent or deliberatly trying to manipulate the stock price down with misleading public reports, unfortunetly it works, people actually believe everything they read.
DeleteI am going to call myself analyst from now and my full time job will be to comment on analyst like James Faucette's fact-less and baseless claims.. Poor guy had nothing to write about so thought why not write ANYTHING about RIM....
ReplyDeleteIs there a chance he(they) has an interest in Apple? Google? and/or Amazon, etc.?
ReplyDeleteNow, he states: "Let us be clear: we do not have a firm opinion on the quality of upcoming BB10 devices and OS (although we harbour our doubts)."
With 'absolutely' no-basis for 'his' opinion, he has 'doubts' as to the quality of BB10 and the OS.
He may very well trying to swing folks in a certain direction...
We're all entitled to an opinion. We're better served, when that opinion is based on 'facts'.
...well...to James Faucette...
ReplyDeleteopinions are like certain cavities...everybody has the right to one...
anything more would be a waste of (web)space ...
obviously Mr.Faucette's opinion is strongly biased, why - it doesn't matter...i wonder why can't we all live together peacefully minding our own business...leave the iphones and their hundreds of thousands puny apps to isheeps, and let us "over caffeinated, always late, polyglot business men" enjoy our blackberries running BB6,7 or 10 or any other version...if "they" miraculously manage to bring down RIM and the others, and Apple products would be the only one left on the market, I would rather go back to smoke signals than picking up an iphone...
ReplyDeleteI only care about the analysis and I don't get it. If service subsidies become prevalent as he conjectures then this should not only hurt RIM's business but Microsofts, and Apple's (and others) using his logic. Personally I don't buy it - users will not buy a phone for only this reason.
ReplyDeleteI used my roommate's iPad during a party but it crashed several times on internet browser when I tried to access the website. Not sure why people are still paying that much as if there is no other choice.
ReplyDeletegosh thanks for that
DeleteI think both Faucette and readers views have merit. Faucette appears like many other 'analysts' who have disparaged RIMM in a way that seems completely baseless. But his point is that to make a meaningful change in the trajectory of RIMM's value, there will have to be a large and sustainable volume of BB10 level sales. He did disparage the quality of the BB10 but consider that dictum. I'm stumbling along on an old BB Tour and will pay whatever the price is to get a BB10 if it's at all close to what is being represented by RIMM. But my sale, and those of all the comment writers above, alone, won't save RIMM. Lets hope for the best. Aside...I was shocked to see NTSB move to iPhone, especially when no one argues the superior security aspects of RIMM..and just weeks away from the release. Something doesn't smell right there. Our government wouldn't make incompetent decisions, would it?
ReplyDeleteBB10 will be dead on arrival. Consumers bought blackberries for the physical keyboard. With that gone, what's the attraction?
ReplyDeleteObviously you don't know very much. There will be 2 models released. First will be the touchscreen, followed by a qwerty model a couple weeks later. Get your facts straight before making useless comments.
Deletewell like i have said before,if Rim comes out with something new,then they have a chance. i dont mean something somewhat improved, but brand new. no one is going to give up their phone for something that is claimed to be somewhat better. yes Rim shares seem to be rising right now but if they bring out what is really already out by others then i believe at the point of their presentation of new os and hardware the shares will decline. have a nice day Freelance Eng.(designer of smartphone tech)
ReplyDeletePhysical keyboard isn't gone....they are relaesing a phone with a physical keyboard which is what their market is. The touchscreen is just to get a peice of apple/androids market as well.
ReplyDeleteThe opinion of these are regarded as facts.Do everyone shop at Walmart? They has never seen the product and is ready to trash it.The deepest pockets are corporations that wants security not a toy.
ReplyDelete