UPDATED 07:19 EDT / SEPTEMBER 26 2013

NEWS

BlackBerry Cancels Friday’s Conference Call As T-Mobile Cans Its Phones

The dark clouds hovering over BlackBerry are getting thicker by the day.

Over the last week, the beleaguered smartphone maker has announced one disastrous bit of news after the over.  First was the delayed launch of its popular BlackBerry Messaging app for iOS and Android, which was pulled from both platform’s app stores over incompatibility issues; then we had the announcement that it was laying off 4,500 of its employees globally, or about 40 percent of its workforce; and now today, we’re told that BlackBerry has canceled its preliminary second quarter fiscal 2014 results conference call, which was scheduled for this coming Friday.

The cancellation of its conference call comes after BlackBerry stopped trading on both the Nasdaq and the Toronto Stock Exchange, which happened after it announced that Fairfax Financial Holdings has signed an agreement of intent to acquire the Canadian company at$9 a share, provided certain conditions are met.

The company was expected to discuss its financial results on Friday via a conference call, but BlackBerry has now cancelled that and instead decided to release a written discussion, together with its financial results, sometime next week.

In its preliminary second quarter fiscal 2014 results, BlackBerry stated that it expects a GAAP net operating loss of approximately $950 million to $995 million, which includes a primarily non-cash, pre-tax inventory charge of approximately $930 million to $960 million, and a pre-tax restructuring charge of $72 million. It says that this is the result of an increasingly competitive business environment impacting BlackBerry smartphone volumes.

Though Fairfax’s intent to acquire the company may seem like it’s finally getting a break, nothing is guaranteed.  Fairfax can still walk away from the deal unscathed at any time.  Meanwhile BlackBerry can also pull out of the deal, if it finds someone with a better offer, however it would have to pay $157 million to Fairfax in order to do so.

To make things worse, this morning T-Mobile’s executive vice president for corporate services David Carey, announced that the carrier will no longer sell BlackBerry devices in its retail stores.  T-Mobile will instead ship its remaining BlackBerrys directly to consumers.

Carey stated that keeping BlackBerrys in store was inefficient, since so few consumers were interested in purchasing them.  And those who are interested come from the business sector who do not make buying decisions in store.

“Therefore we will display and sell it in the store for those consumers who would like to see one,” Carey added.


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