Is Research In Motion Ltd (BBRY) Back?

What does it all mean?

Nobody thinks that BlackBerry is going to rival Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) or Samsung in terms of shipment volume in the foreseeable future. However, BlackBerry has traded below book value for a long time, which implies that many people still expect the company to go out of business relatively soon. In other words, it’s not really fair to compare BlackBerry to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), Samsung, and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) for investment purposes. If BlackBerry can carve out a small niche in the smartphone market — perhaps 5% of the high-end and midrange segments — investors will be thrilled. Anything beyond that is just icing on the cake.

Realistically, to accomplish this, Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) needs to start by converting most of its existing subscribers to BlackBerry 10 devices. Considering how outdated the legacy BlackBerry OS is, these users ought to be very excited about the opportunity to upgrade to a much snappier BlackBerry phone. If this is true, there should be enough pent-up demand to soak up at least 4-5 million Z10 and Q10 phones for the first several quarters of production.

If BlackBerry was able to ship 5 million BB10 phones last quarter, and three-quarters of them sold through to consumers during the quarter, it would strongly suggest that this “turnaround scenario” is materializing. If shipments or sell-through are notably weaker, it will confirm the bears’ fears about Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) getting squeezed out of the smartphone market. For now, investors need to wait and see. Hopefully, BlackBerry’s future will become a lot clearer on Friday.

The article Is BlackBerry Back? originally appeared on Fool.com and is written by Adam Levine-Weinberg.

Fool contributor Adam Levine-Weinberg owns shares of Apple and BlackBerry and is long January 2014 $13 Calls on BlackBerry. The Motley Fool recommends and owns shares of Apple and Google.

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