Executives from BlackBerry (NYSE:BB) detailed the company’s strategy and recent operating progress during a presentation at CES in Las Vegas, with a particular focus on its QNX business and efforts to expand beyond automotive into broader embedded markets.
Company overview and financial focus
Chief Executive Officer John Giamatteo said BlackBerry operates in more than 20 countries with roughly 1,700 employees, with about two-thirds of staff based in Canada. He noted the company is “on pace to exceed $530 million” in revenue this year, describing it as a transitional period as BlackBerry shifted emphasis “from a cyber to a more secure comms-focused” business mix.
- QNX, which he described as the company’s growth engine.
- Secure communications, which he characterized as stable and cash-generative, helping fund investment in QNX.
- Licensing, built on a long-standing patent portfolio and multiple monetization models.
He also highlighted what he called improving fundamentals, citing “seven consecutive quarters of improving” net income, with the last three quarters “net income positive.” He added that the company has moved from burning cash to “sustainable cash generation quarter over quarter,” with the exception of one seasonal quarter.
QNX product momentum and market positioning
Grant Courville, responsible for product strategy and strategic alliances at QNX, framed QNX’s role as focused on embedded systems where safety, security, reliability, and real-time performance are critical—spanning automotive as well as industrial, medical, robotics, aerospace, and defense.
Courville emphasized QNX’s long-term support model and customer relationships, saying the company is structured to help customers build and maintain systems over 10 to 20 years. He pointed to the 2024 launch of QNX 8 (also referenced as QNX SDP 8), describing it as a response to rising demand for performance and scalability at the edge without compromising safety and reliability. According to Courville, the product has been adopted by silicon vendors, and he said QNX is enabling linear performance scaling across increasing core counts—capabilities he said were not possible with the prior generation.
Courville said QNX technology has been selected by the top 10 automotive OEMs and all of the top Tier 1 suppliers he referenced, and he cited “275 million vehicles on the road today” running QNX technology. He also said QNX has delivered “solid double-digit growth over the last five years,” and asserted that trend would continue.
Automotive architecture shift and a BMW example
Courville described an ongoing shift in automotive electronics from distributed architectures toward greater consolidation and high-performance compute. He said QNX is seeing traction in areas such as digital cockpits, ADAS consolidation, and smart sensors, positioning these trends as part of the broader move to software-defined vehicles.
As an example, Courville highlighted a BMW announcement made the prior day: BMW selected QNX for its next vehicle generation, which he said would use four high-performance compute systems (described as “Super Brains”) with “20 times the performance capability” of BMW’s current vehicles. Courville said this approach reflects a move toward abstracting hardware from software and increasing software content and complexity inside the vehicle.
Alloy Core, general embedded expansion, and “QNX Everywhere”
Justin Moon, who leads QNX’s software engineering organization, said QNX is expanding beyond its traditional operating system and virtualization roots due to customer demand for broader solutions that address software complexity and integration challenges.
Moon highlighted Alloy Core, a joint development effort between QNX and Vector Informatik that he said was announced the previous day. He described Alloy Core as a rethinking of software stack integration—aimed at improving safety and security integration and reducing development friction. Moon said the initiative is intended to help customers scale investments across hardware and software and accelerate time to market. He also said the intent is to increase software dollar content per vehicle without adding unnecessary layers that could increase complexity.
Moon also discussed expanding QNX’s reach in “general embedded” markets—such as industrial control, robotics, and medical—arguing that many of the same software and systems challenges in automotive apply to robotics and other embedded segments. He said QNX’s prior investments in automotive can be leveraged in adjacent markets without requiring an entirely new technology build-out, focusing instead on packaging and go-to-market execution. Moon referenced a slide showing a $2.7 billion figure for the potential addressable market in industrial robotics.
In addition, Moon described QNX Everywhere as an initiative to remove barriers to entry for non-commercial use of QNX products in academia, research, and proof-of-concept work. He said the program is designed to build long-term mindshare with future engineers and decision-makers. Moon cited participation from “over 100 major universities,” “5,000 registrants” in online courses, “6,000 students” attending classes and workshops, and “over 12,000 licenses” in use through the platform.
Backlog growth, ASP expectations, and China discussion
Returning to the stage, Giamatteo pointed to QNX backlog as a key growth indicator, stating it stands at $865 million, up from $460 million in Q4 2022. He also said secure communications annual recurring revenue (ARR), which had been declining, has stabilized over the past 18 months and “even grown a little bit.”
During Q&A, company representatives said QNX’s current revenue mix is roughly 80% automotive and 20% general embedded, while the pipeline for QNX SDP 8 was described as approximately 50/50 between automotive and general embedded opportunities. They said general embedded design activity has increased, but noted the production cycle means mix shifts may take time.
In response to a question about China, Courville said safety and security requirements are consistent globally and become even more important for Chinese OEMs seeking to export. He referenced ISO 26262 safety certification and ISO 21434 cybersecurity standards as relevant to international markets. Executives also said competitive pressure is increasing timelines, but maintained that automakers are not willing to compromise on safety and security. Courville said pre-integration efforts such as Alloy Core are intended to help accelerate delivery while maintaining those standards.
On potential revenue impact, management indicated Alloy Core is still in early access and not yet under signed contracts, but suggested it could drive “several X” uplift in average selling price per “socket,” rather than incremental gains. Giamatteo also noted that Mercedes-Benz had publicly endorsed Alloy Core in a press release issued the previous day.
About BlackBerry (NYSE:BB)
BlackBerry Limited, formerly known as Research In Motion (RIM), is a Canadian enterprise software and cybersecurity company based in Waterloo, Ontario. Since its founding in 1984, the firm has evolved from a pioneer in mobile devices into a specialist in secure communications, endpoint management, and embedded systems software. BlackBerry’s core mission today centers on delivering security-first solutions that protect critical data and infrastructure across diverse industries.
At the heart of BlackBerry’s offerings is the BlackBerry Spark® platform, which combines unified endpoint management (UEM), secure communications, and artificial intelligence–driven threat detection into a single framework.
