Positive reception to BlackBerry’s new smart phone products are partly responsible for powering the Canadian computer and electronic manufacturing industry back to profitability, according to a recent report.
Posting a $340 million pre-tax profit in 2012, the industry saw its revenue and profit levels dive to their “lowest ebb since the bursting of the dot.com bubble in 2001,” a report by the Conference Board of Canada said today.
This year however, the board reported, profits will “improved significantly, but will remain below the $1 billion mark.
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Being the largest electronics manufacturing company in the country, the success of the new BlackBerry 10 devices will play an important role in the resurgence of the industry, according to the CBC.
“This year the new BlackBerry 10 devices are expected to boost sales in the first quarter and sustain revenues over the rest of the year,” the CBC report said. “…Although official data on sales and revenue have yet to be published the reaction to the products from the stock markets and critics have been positive.”
Between the first quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013, BlackBerry’s share of the global smart phone sales fell from 6.4 per cent to 2.4 per cent. It is now fighting to regain its fourth place in the market after being passed by Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone system, the CBC said.
The report noted that BlackBerry has had a lot of success in emerging markets, particularly in the Middle East where it “earns a significant portion of its revenues.”
It cautioned that any downturn in economic conditions in this region could impact the outlook for the Canadian electronics product industry.
“According to the International Monetary Fund, economic growth in the Middle East will decline in 2013 before rebounding somewhat in 2014,” the report said. “The downturn is mainly a result of unstable economic conditions of the non-oil exporting countries in the region, although oil exporters will also experience decline in economic growth this year