BlackBerry: Back in the black?

The once-iconic phonemaker expects to be profitable again

6/28/24 5:22AM

We’ll be fine

Shares of BlackBerry rose 11% yesterday after the company posted a smaller than expected loss, edging the once world-beating company back towards profitability, with the CEO expecting BlackBerry to be “generating positive cash flow in the fourth quarter”.

The results had nothing to do with shipping phones, however. Since its dramatic fall from grace, the company has pivoted towards selling the software and security features that helped make its phones so popular with security-conscious white-collar workers in the first place.

BlackBerry, along with other 2000s classics like Nokia, TomTom, and pretty much the entire MP3 market, was decimated by the release of the iPhone in 2007. The company’s revenue peaked just shy of $20 billion in 2011, but as the iPhone and other smartphones went mainstream, its sales plummeted. Just five years later, BlackBerry's revenue had dropped to around $2 billion, a period that included a staggering $4.4 billion loss in a single quarter due to a massive inventory writedown.

Realizing that its co-CEO’s famous words — "we'll be fine" — after the iPhone launch were, shall we say, a bit optimistic, the company eventually abandoned selling hardware in 2016. That shift has hardly restored BlackBerry into the global leader that it once was, its most recent annual sales amounted to just 4% of its record, but some version of the company remains alive and kicking. In fact, there’s a good chance you’ve recently used a BlackBerry product indirectly: the company reports that its software is in more than 235 million vehicles around the world.

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Ford joins GM in backing off of its EV tax credit extension plan following GOP criticism

Ford, despite benefiting from an electric sales surge in recent months, is giving up on a clever accounting plan to extend the expired $7,500 EV tax credit to some of its customers.

Like its rival GM earlier this week, Ford on Thursday night confirmed to Reuters that it will not claim the tax credit, backing off from its short-lived leasing strategy.

The automakers’ plan was to extend the subsidy by using their financial arms to put down payments on electric vehicles already on their dealers’ lots in late September. Those transactions would qualify for the credit, and Ford and GM could pass the discount on to customers through leases.

But the strategy angered GOP senators, who last week wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accusing the automakers of “bilking” taxpayers.

Ford CEO Jim Farley last month said he expects the end of the tax credit to cut EV sales in half.

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But the strategy angered GOP senators, who last week wrote a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accusing the automakers of “bilking” taxpayers.

Ford CEO Jim Farley last month said he expects the end of the tax credit to cut EV sales in half.

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Sales in the region fell by more than a fifth in Q3.

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Domino’s just announced its first rebrand in 13 years — maybe a new, “doughier” font will help sales pick up

Shaboozey! Domino’s Sans! Hotter colors as a nod to the melty heat of a pizza pulled fresh from the oven!

In a buzzword-laden justification of its rebrand yesterday, Domino’s laid plain its new aesthetic direction, coined the term “Cravemark,” and announced it would be bringing the focus back to its food, having (at least in its executive vice president’s words) become known as “a technology company that happens to sell pizza” over the last decade.

It can’t go any worse than Cracker Barrel’s refresh efforts, at least...

The raft of changes, which will roll out across the US and other international markets in the coming months, includes a new “audio and visual expression” of the brand’s name (throwing a few extra M’s on the boxes and getting country/hip-hop artist Shaboozey to elongate the letter in a jingle); brighter packaging and hotter colors; “more youthful” team uniforms (company-color Salomons and an apron with “pizza is brat” on it, maybe?); and a new “Domino’s Sans” font, which is “thicker and doughier” and has circles and semicircles “in nod to pizza, with lots of personality baked right in!”

Domino’s is down about 2% so far this year.

Domino's® New Craveable Brand Refresh Makes You Say "Mmm" | Domino's Pizza