Blackberry shares soared after the company beat analysts earnings forecasts. John Chen, CEO of Blackberry, joined us to break down the results.
Blackberry's results were boosted by an increase in business software sales and licensing revenue. Chen says Blackberry has 2 major focuses. The first is the enterprise software business and the other is the auto sector. Blackberry has been in the auto business for 8-10 years, but made a bigger push about 4 years ago, he points out.
Chen says there are 60 million cars on the roads using blackberry software. Looking forward, the company is working on designing new components such as lane-changing and communication capabilities with other cars and infrastructure. He sees a huge opportunity in the space, emphasizing that about 100 million cars are made every year.
Despite challenges like inflation, labor and product shortages, and the Omicron variant, holiday sales saw record levels of growth this year, according to a new report from Mastercard SpendingPulse. The group reports on national retail sales across all payment types, finding that holiday sales rose at the fastest pace in 17 years this year. Mastercard senior advisor and former chariman and CEO of Saks Incorporated Steve Sadove joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Keith Fitz-Gerald, chief investment officer at Fitz-Gerald Group, spoke to Cheddar about the growing competition for Tesla's electric cars in China as tech giant Huawei enters the race. "There's a lot of legacy worry, but that does not discount the possibility that Elon might have a contender on his hands," he said about the sometimes troubled telecom company. Fitz-Gerald also gave a nod to two other local rivals, Nio and XPeng, noting the latter as having something of an edge with its CEO He Xiopeng being lauded by Chinese state media.
