BlackBerry Ltd, the struggling smartphone maker, struck a five-year deal with Apple Inc supplier Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd (鴻海精密) to make its devices, following another quarterly plunge in sales and mounting losses.
Hon Hai, known in China as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), will manufacture products for BlackBerry at plants in Indonesia and Mexico, according to a statement yesterday.
BlackBerry will own all of its intellectual property and handle quality assurance on devices through Foxconn, the world’s largest manufacturer of electronic products, the statement said.
BlackBerry chief executive officer John Chen (程守宗), hired last month after the company abandoned a plan to sell itself, is trying to restore confidence among both investors and corporate customers, who he says will be the focus of BlackBerry’s efforts in the future.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based company also said in the statement that its sales in the three months ending Nov. 30 fell 56 percent to US$1.19 billion. That missed the average estimate of US$1.59 billion in a Bloomberg survey of analysts. BlackBerry posted a loss from continuing operations of US$0.67. Analysts estimated a loss of US$0.46.
The Canadian company also said that it is taking a charge of US$4.6 billion for assets, inventory and supply commitments it is writing down.
FALLING SHARE
BlackBerry’s share of the global smartphone market tumbled to just 1.7 percent in the third quarter from 4.1 percent a year earlier, according to IDC. Android, the Google Inc operating system used by Samsung Electronics Co and others, had an 81 percent share, and Apple’s iOS had 13 percent, IDC said.
That’s left investors skeptical of Chen’s chances of turning BlackBerry around. The company’s stock has fallen 20 percent through Thursday’s close from Nov. 1, the last trading day before Chen took over. It rose 3.1 percent to US$6.25 on Thursday in New York and remains more than 95 percent below its 2008 high.
To many, Tatu City on the outskirts of Nairobi looks like a success. The first city entirely built by a private company to be operational in east Africa, with about 25,000 people living and working there, it accounts for about two-thirds of all foreign investment in Kenya. Its low-tax status has attracted more than 100 businesses including Heineken, coffee brand Dormans, and the biggest call-center and cold-chain transport firms in the region. However, to some local politicians, Tatu City has looked more like a target for extortion. A parade of governors have demanded land worth millions of dollars in exchange
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue jumped 48 percent last month, underscoring how electronics firms scrambled to acquire essential components before global tariffs took effect. The main chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp reported monthly sales of NT$349.6 billion (US$11.6 billion). That compares with the average analysts’ estimate for a 38 percent rise in second-quarter revenue. US President Donald Trump’s trade war is prompting economists to retool GDP forecasts worldwide, casting doubt over the outlook for everything from iPhone demand to computing and datacenter construction. However, TSMC — a barometer for global tech spending given its central role in the
An Indonesian animated movie is smashing regional box office records and could be set for wider success as it prepares to open beyond the Southeast Asian archipelago’s silver screens. Jumbo — a film based on the adventures of main character, Don, a large orphaned Indonesian boy facing bullying at school — last month became the highest-grossing Southeast Asian animated film, raking in more than US$8 million. Released at the end of March to coincide with the Eid holidays after the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan, the movie has hit 8 million ticket sales, the third-highest in Indonesian cinema history, Film
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in server chips, expects revenue to decline this year due to sagging demand for 5-nanometer artificial intelligence (AI) chips from a North America-based major customer, a company executive said yesterday. That would be the first contraction in revenue for Alchip as it has been enjoying strong revenue growth over the past few years, benefiting from cloud-service providers’ moves to reduce dependence on Nvidia Corp’s expensive AI chips by building their own AI accelerator by outsourcing chip design. The 5-nanometer chip was supposed to be a new growth engine as the lifecycle
RSS