https://seekingalpha.com/article/1706652-blackberry-5-things-to-know-about-its-earnings-warning
One of the five things
BlackBerry Had An Incredible Amount Of BlackBerry OS Inventory In Channel Before FY2012
BlackBerry's sell-through has been equal to or above shipments for 9 of the past 10 quarters. Sell-through figures have averaged 18% above shipments since the beginning of FY2012, meaning that channel inventory has fallen by 15.9 million units over that period. Since sell-through of BlackBerry 10 is going to be logically lower than shipments, that means that BlackBerry probably had at least 17 million units in channel inventory at the start of FY2012. Since BlackBerry's maximum quarterly sell-through was around 14.5 million units, that represents 15 weeks of inventory at maximum sell-through rates. Targeted channel inventory levels are usually around 4 to 6 weeks.
BlackBerry appears to have done a lot of channel stuffing prior to FY2012. That has hurt the perception of BlackBerry as the lower shipment numbers get reported and make BlackBerry appear to be doing somewhat worse than it actually is. The "loss" of revenue since the beginning of FY2012 due to that prior channel stuffing is around $4 billion.
|
Shipments (Million)
|
Sell-through (Million)
|
Channel Inventory Reduction (Million)
|
|
Q1 FY2012
|
13.2
|
13.3
|
0.1
|
|
Q2 FY2012
|
10.6
|
13.7
|
3.1
|
|
Q3 FY2012
|
14.1
|
13
|
-1.1
|
|
Q4 FY2012
|
11.1
|
13.6
|
2.5
|
|
Q1 FY2013
|
7.8
|
10.5
|
2.7
|
|
Q2 FY2013
|
7.4
|
10.4
|
3
|
|
Q3 FY2013
|
6.9
|
8.4
|
1.5
|
|
Q4 FY2013
|
6
|
7.9
|
1.9
|
|
Q1 FY2014
|
6.8
|
6.8
|
0
|
|
Q2 FY2014
|
3.7
|
5.9
|
2.2
|
|
Total
|
87.6
|
103.5
|
15.9
|