Position: Long BB
Disclaimer: I own shares. This isn't financial advice. Tear the thesis apart.
When people hear BlackBerry, they still think phones, keyboards and a failed turnaround.
That business is gone.
Today BlackBerry is primarily:
- QNX
- Secure Communications
After selling Cylance, the company became far cleaner financially and removed one of its biggest money-losing businesses.
QNX isn't another operating system.
It's one of the few operating systems certified for ASIL-D, the highest automotive safety standard.
That matters because modern vehicles cannot simply swap in another OS once they're certified.
There are:
- 275+ million vehicles deployed
- \~$950M royalty backlog
- \~84% gross margins
- Growing double digits: in the past 5 days BB went from 8,8 USD to 12,5 USD at the time of writing
Most people don't really understand why QNX matters so much, I'll tell you why.
Cars are basically becoming computers, OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers - companies that sell parts or products that then get rebranded under a different company name) make money after car is sold through subscriptions, ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance programs) and OTAs (Over The Air updates, basically a wireless software update). This all sounds very technical but to explain it with some examples:
GM already generates billions annually from OnStar and Super Cruise.
Ford charges recurring subscriptions for BlueCruise.
The software economy inside vehicles is growing much faster than vehicle production itself.
QNX sits underneath much of that software stack which means there is alot of potential in the earnings model:
Today's model:
Manufacturer builds a vehicle.
↓
BlackBerry collects a royalty.
Done.
My thesis:
Tomorrow's model may look like:
Vehicle generates authenticated safety events.
↓
Those events flow through QNX.
↓
BlackBerry captures recurring economics from the software layer.
If this happens—even modestly—it completely changes the valuation framework.
This is the largest assumption in my thesis, and also the biggest risk.
The market also doesn't just lie in consumer vehicles because QNX already is widespread in the Defense sector. Military equipment like submarines, aerospace, NASA missions, comms, drones and government systems already use QNX.
Recent partnerships suggest management is pushing much harder into defense.
Whether these become meaningful revenue remains to be seen, but analysts largely ignore the segment today.
One announcement that caught my attention:
QNX is collaborating with NVIDIA on the Halos safety platform for robotics.
If physical AI becomes a real industry over the next decade, safety-certified operating systems become increasingly valuable.
Again:
Not guaranteed revenue.
But another free option the market appears to assign almost no value.
Current market narrative:
My view:
BlackBerry is evolving into an embedded infrastructure company across several industries.
If the market continues pricing only today's royalties, the stock remains cheap.
If recurring software revenue expands into connected vehicles, robotics, defense, or data services, today's valuation could prove far too low.
RISKS
This is absolutely not a risk-free investment.
The biggest risks are:
- OEMs develop their own middleware
- Vehicle data monetization never materializes
- Defense programs take years to produce revenue
- Robotics remains mostly hype
- V2X adoption is delayed
- The market continues valuing BB like a legacy company
The entire thesis depends on execution—not just technology.
I'll become much more bullish if management begins reporting meaningful recurring revenue from:
- vehicle data services
- V2X infrastructure
- robotics
- defense software
If those never appear, then BB probably deserves something much closer to its current multiple.
The bear case is easy:
The bull case is much larger:
Today's valuation largely pr