Q2 Likely ‘Low Point’ of Chip Crunch: BlackBerry CEO

The chip shortage will continue to be a “significant factor” in the automotive market near term, “and it's no doubt currently impacting the production-driven revenue of QNX,” BlackBerry’s embedded systems operating system software, said CEO John Chen on an earnings call Thursday for fiscal Q1 ended May 31. “The scale of the impact varies by region and by OEM," and looks to be “greatest” in North America, “less so” in Europe and Asia,” he said. One of BlackBerry’s largest automotive OEM customers in North America “indicated that production in Q2 will be impacted or may be impacted by up to 50%, but others are less severe,” he said. Q2 appears to be the “low point,” with Q3 improving and Q4 “further so,” he said. “The impact also looks to be smaller than that of the pandemic last year.” BlackBerry estimates ONX software is installed in nearly 200 million vehicles on the road globally, up from 175 million last year.