Why BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY) Stock Will Keep Growing No Matter What

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Since I wrote my previous article on BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY), which detailed its many positive catalysts, more upbeat news about the company has surfaced. While BBRY stock has risen in the wake of this news, BlackBerry stock is still significantly undervalued given its huge upside potential.

Why BlackBerry Ltd (BBRY) Stock Will Keep Growing No Matter What

Last month, Ant Financial, a subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA), announced that it would partner with Indonesia’s Emtek Group to develop a mobile payments service in Indonesia.

Initially, the companies will focus on creating a mobile payments service for BlackBerry Messenger, which is still used by over 60 million people in the populous Asian country.

What BlackBerry Stock Has Going for It

Although the company will probably not get revenue directly from the deal since it licensed the Indonesian rights to BBM to Emtek last year, the transaction could still help BlackBerry stock. Specifically, if Emtek generates a significant amount of revenue from BBM, then BlackBerry will probably greatly increase the licensing fee it charges Emtek when the current deal expires.

Moreover, since the deal between Emtek and BBRY stipulates that BlackBerry’s licensing fee is based on the number of BBM users that view Emtek’s content, the company’s revenue and profits will increase if the mobile payments system becomes popular and spurs more Indonesians to use BBM.

Furthermore, BBRY said last year that the deal could be expanded to cover additional countries. If the payments platform proves to be popular, Emtek could look to license the use of BBM in additional countries. Finally, the deal enables BlackBerry to work with Alibaba and could possibly lead to direct transactions between the e-commerce gorilla and the Canadian company.

Meanwhile, there have been a couple of indications that the company’s hardware business is not quite dead yet. Optiemus Infracom, which licensed BlackBerry devices in India, recently said that it expects to sell Rs200 crore — equal to over $300 million — of the devices in the country this fiscal year.

Optiemus appears to be a serious company, since it created a $200 million joint venture with  Taiwan’s Wistron Corp, which had $21.8 billion of revenue in 2015,  for the manufacture of various consumer goods. Again, BlackBerry won’t get revenue directly from the sale of its products in India in the near-term because it licensed them to Optiemus. However, the company’s licensing fees would eventually increase if Optiemus obtains a great deal of revenue from BBRY’s products in India.

Furthermore, reviews of the KeyOne, a keyboard phone jointly developed by BlackBerry and its partner, TCL, appears to have been mostly positive. For example, The Verge’s Dan Seifert said that the device’s keyboard made him feel more productive, while Engadget wrote that the device is “a pretty great little phone.”

Although the financial details of the deal between BlackBerry and TCL have not been revealed, the terms of the transaction may not be that significant. Again, even if TCL acquired the rights to BlackBerry devices in exchange for a licensing fee, it can charge a higher licensing fee after the current deal expires if TCL generates meaningful revenue from the current deal.

Finally, as everyone following BBRY stock knows, the company won a near-$1 billion judgment against Qualcomm, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM). Blackberry will probably spend most of the windfall on acquisitions. It could eliminate a competitor in the enterprise mobility management space by buying Mobileiron Inc (NASDAQ:MOBL), or look to enhance its IT security offerings by buying a company like CyberArk Software Ltd (NASDAQ:CYBR) or Barracuda Networks Inc (NYSE:CUDA).

Bottom Line on BBRY Stock

Of course, the company could also acquire a privately held company in the fields of IT security, driverless cars, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things or enterprise mobility management. As long as it presents a solid strategic rationale for the deal, the company or companies it acquires has solid technology, and it does not overpay too much, I believe that acquisitions will boost BlackBerry stock.

As I discussed in my last article, the valuation of BBRY stock was quite attractive. Although the stock has climbed quite a bit since the last article was published, it has also gained a significant amount of cash and several additional potential growth engines have emerged. As a result, BlackBerry stock remains attractive, and investors should continue to accumulate its shares.

As of this writing, Larry Ramer owned shares of BBRY stock.

Larry Ramer has conducted research and written articles on U.S. stocks for 15 years. He has been employed by The Fly and Israel’s largest business newspaper, Globes. Larry began writing columns for InvestorPlace in 2015. Among his highly successful, contrarian picks have been SMCI, INTC, and MGM. You can reach him on Stocktwits at @larryramer.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2017/05/blackberry-ltd-bbry-stock-keep-growing/.

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