BlackBerry is not the sexy company it once was, this fund manager says

Take a pass on BlackBerry (BlackBerry Stock Quote, Chart TSX:BB), says Bruce Murray of the Murray Wealth Group, who argues that there are much better names in the tech sector for your investment dollars.

“They’ve got hope for a whole bunch of new products, but they’re all security and they’re all related into the phone system and there’s a lot of heavy competition in that area,” says Murray, CEO of Murray Wealth to BNN Bloomberg Monday. “It’s slow growth, it’s nickel-and-dime type business.”

BlackBerry acquired the QNX operating system in 2010 and is currently fitting it for the smartphone market, along with the doubtlessly sexier field of autonomous vehicles. Relating to the auto sector, BlackBerry CEO John Chen said last year that QNX has already been embedded in 120 million vehicles worldwide, with the company now promoting it as “the first digital cockpit solution” for auto security.

But Murray is clearly skeptical about BB’s prospects.

“The sexy BlackBerry of the past is gone,” he says. “And their penetration into the auto business is doing well, but auto companies put out contracts and the low bidder gets them and they do have competition.”

“We don’t own BlackBerry. I’d prefer that you buy OpenText or Facebook or Google if you want to play in the technology business,” he says.

After a dismal 2018, BlackBerry’s share price has been on the upswing, now up 12 per cent in 2019. The company last reported earnings on December 20, posting a consensus beat on sales at $228 million versus the expected $215.7 million and net income of $59 million