Blackberry stock rises despite Q4 earnings miss

Yahoo Finance Live anchors Rachelle Akuffo and Brad Smith discuss the rise in stock for Blackberry following fourth-quarter earnings.

Video transcript

BRAD SMITH: And another company that we're watching here on the day, we got to talk about Blackberry. Blackberry out with a miss on revenue, estimates in its latest quarter as the company hits hurdles in closing cyber security software deals. Yes, you heard that right, cybersecurity software deals.

Now, what Blackberry has been focused on for a few years now as the company has taken on more faces than Arya Stark, at the end of the day forming an entity that can go on from here and really play in the IOT revenue space. They saw IOT revenue in and out of things, revenue come in at about $53 million, cybersecurity revenue, which we had mentioned a moment ago, come in at $88 million there. And that's really the leading revenue driver right now for the company that brings in about $151 million in total revenue, at least in this most recent quarter here. They also had a new patent sale transaction that was pretty considerable here for up to $900 million. You imagine that would be a big boon to their business if that was able to fully be executed over the amount of time that that deal is set forth for, as well.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: And a lot of people thought Blackberry was down for the count, but really lent into its cybersecurity business. And you figure, especially with the rise of things like generative AI, even more important than ever as we see some of these data issues coming up, companies needing to protect themselves, some of these threats increasing, as well. So definitely a bigger play here for Blackberry.

BRAD SMITH: Yeah, this is a business that has transformed from being one that everyone carried around in their pocket on the smartphone basis that had the annexation or the connotation of being crackberry, because you always had it in your hand, and then also had played in even the automotive landscape, as well, in their QNX business over the years, and then additionally now making this pivot into cybersecurity. And so we'll see where that continues to create material offerings or just deal-making ability for them to be able to stay in existence and continue to compete in this market.

RACHELLE AKUFFO: We'll keep tracking. I do still miss the buttons on the phone, though, still miss that.