The Blacker The Berry The Sweeter The Juice
-By Sam B | [email protected]
BlackBerry shares surged on Wednesday because of an $815M award, from a lawsuit against Qualcomm.
The stock finished the day up more than 16%. Even with the large settlement, it is expected for BlackBerry and Qualcomm remain strategic partners. John Chen, the CEO of BlackBerry said that they would "continue to be valued technology partners."
This settlement is particularly sweet for BlackBerry because its last quarter showed a loss of 9 cents a share, but NON GAAP earnings were 4 cents a share. Q4 saw margins surged to 60.1% from 45.3% in the prior year quarter, but revenue dropped by over 35% to $286 million. Revenue in the full year ended February 28, 2017 ended at $1.31 billion down from $2.16 billion.
Investors could be hoping that Blackberry returns the excess cash to shareholders or, perhaps, pay down its small amount of debt, standing at $591 million. Either way, it was a particularly sweet day for BlackBerry investors as their holdings moved a little more into the black.