BlackBerry Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
June 28, 2023

There are 10 speakers on the call.

Operator

Afternoon, and welcome to the BlackBerry First Quarter Fiscal Year 20 24 Results Conference Call. My name is Andrea, and I will be your conference moderator for today's call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen only mode. We will be facilitating a brief question and answer session towards the end of the conference. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes.

Operator

I I would now like to turn today's call over to Tim Foote, Vice President of Blockberry Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, Andrea. Good afternoon, and welcome to BlackBerry's Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call. With me on the call today are Executive Chair and Chief Executive Officer, John Chen and Chief Financial Officer, Steve Ray. After I read our cautionary note regarding forward looking statements, John will provide a business update and Steve will review the financial results. We will then open the call for a brief Q and A session.

Speaker 1

This call is available to the general public via call in numbers and via webcast in the Investor Information section at blackberry.com. A replay will also be available on the blackberry.com website. Some of the statements we'll be making today constitute forward looking statements and are made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of applicable U. S. And Canadian securities laws.

Speaker 1

We'll indicate forward looking statements by using words such as expect, Will, should, model, intend, believe and similar expressions. Forward looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions made by the company in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors that the company believes are relevant. Many factors could cause the company's actual results All performance to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward looking statements. These factors include the risk factors that are discussed in the company's annual filings and MD and A. You should not place undue reliance on the company's forward looking statements.

Speaker 1

Any forward looking statements are made only as of today, and the company has no intention and undertakes no obligation to update or revise any of them except as required by law. As is customary during the call, John and Steve will reference non GAAP numbers in their summary of our quarterly and full year results. For a reconciliation between our GAAP and non GAAP numbers, please see the earnings press release published earlier today, which is available on the EDGAR, SEDAR and blackberry.com websites. And with that, I'll turn the

Speaker 2

call over to John. Thanks, Jim. Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for joining the call today. Let me start with the IoT business unit. Revenue for the quarter was $45,000,000 and gross margin remained strong at 80%.

Speaker 2

Revenue came in lower than expected for 2 main reasons. The first related to a number of leading industry players that are revising their development plans as they step up their software defined vehicle efforts. This has caused some program to be delayed. While seeing our customer placing a higher priority on the STB transition is a good thing for both QNX and Ivy, The delayed rollout of QNX development seat license has therefore pushed out revenue this quarter. This was purely a timing issue.

Speaker 2

As we have outlined in the past from quarter to quarter, design phase revenues will fluctuate depending on the timing of large design awards and when the work begins. However, we haven't seen any weakening of the strong secular trends driving the business. We remain confident in our ability to win new designs. The second factor is the macro environment, which has impacted Some regional production volumes and with it royalty revenues. As has been the case in recent quarters, The impact appears to be mix across OEMs and geographies.

Speaker 2

While production in China in the early part of this year was much softer than I expected, Elsewhere in North America, Europe, Japan and Korea, output continues to look relatively steady, helped of course by an easing of supply We will closely monitor the situation and assess for any potential impact for the year. And at this time, we continue to expect to achieve the full year revenue consensus for IoT. Further, We are reiterating the 18% to 22% free year revenue CAGR that we provided at our Analyst Day last month. These targets are based on a number of factors, including our strong QNX backlog, which we reported as being $640,000,000 at last fiscal year end, our pipeline of upcoming potential design wins and our assessment of ongoing secular trends. A data point that illustrate Those trends and our leadership position in the market is our annual vehicle count.

Speaker 2

TechInsight, a leading technology analyst Analysis, sorry, a leading technology analysis and market research firm has published that QNX is now embedded in over 235,000,000 vehicles, a year on year net increase of $20,000,000 or 9%. When compared to annual global vehicle production, this supports a growing market share for QNX. QNX remains the foundational software of choice for leading automakers and Tier 1 suppliers around the growth as we continue to add new design wins. In the quarter, QNX has 7 design wins in auto and 7 in general embedded market verticals. In auto, we continue to secure design wins in the digital cockpit domain.

Speaker 2

This fast growing domain has largely led the way in consolidating various software onto a single high powered chip in the car. This quarter, we recorded wins with 2 of the top 5 global The first win includes our real time operating systems, as well as our hypervisor and acoustic middleware. The second win will deploy 2 instances of QNX supporting the digital cockpit and main body domain, both running on high performance compute engines. We also secured Win of a leading U. S.-based EV Automaker with multiple instances of QNX being deployed.

Speaker 2

QNX in that case will support a sono And central compute architecture, including the digital cockpit and the vehicle telematics. These wins demonstrate how we expanded both the number of domains deploying QNX and the number of layers of QNX deployed in each of the domain. Outside of auto, we recorded wins supporting a range of different applications. In industrial, We secured an ADAS platform for heavy industry machinery and requires both our hypervisor and OS for safety. We also secured wins for industrial testing and control, including a next generation controller for use in marine and aerospace application and a win with a leading global household appliance manufacturer for production line testing equipment.

Speaker 2

In medical, wins include medical eye laser equipment with a leading surgical technology manufacturer. These designs in operational technologies like medical and industry industrial, sorry, My Medical and Industrial demonstrate our ability to win in this very large and growing market. These verticals are showing similar trends to auto, including significantly higher compute at the edge and the need for complex safety critical software stacks, which is where QNX is the market leader. On the product front, last month we announced the early access release About next generation kernel, this is a significant step change for QNX. The new release helped deliver Significantly higher performance in particularly scaling almost linearly as the number of cores on the underlying chip increased Up to 64 cores.

Speaker 2

While safety and reliability are essential parts of the QNS value proposition, It is also our leading performance in complex compute stack that helps differentiate us from our competitors. This release will position QNX to Support the future rapidly increased compute power at the edge for many years to come. Moving on to Ivy. As planned, we have now released a general availability version of Ivy. This is a much more standalone version of the product than before, requiring far less support from the IP technical team.

Speaker 2

We see this as a significant step forward for scaling our go to market efforts, allowing us to support a much wider range of proof of concept trials than before. We are making good progress with building the IV Ecosystem, an important part of the overall value proposition. This past quarter, we announced an investment in the Michigan based CereboMax. Ford, CELENTIS and Toyota are all currently working with Cerebro Max and they offer AI driven solutions that analyze vehicle data on driver behavior and Vehicle Health. They harnessed this data to deliver application such as fleet management and personalized insurance plan.

Speaker 2

IV end to end H2 Cloud platform will provide CerebaMax with higher quality, easier to use data in We also announced a go to market partnership with a leading automotive cybersecurity firm, Upstream Security. Upstream Security partners with BMW, Volvo and Renault as they are already protecting over 20,000,000 vehicles against cyber attacks with their VDR, stands for vehicle detection and response platform. This new partnership with BlackBerry will allow them to leverage IV's edge capabilities to pre process data in near real time, Maintaining cybersecurity while significantly reduced cloud overhead. The strategic decision by BlackBerry and AWS To develop a primarily edge based architecture is proven to be the right call, especially as some cloud only players such as Regal And Autonomous has struggled to achieve profitability. Turning now to the cybersecurity units.

Speaker 2

Revenue for the quarter was $93,000,000 representing 6% sequential growth. Like many others in this market, we have seen we also seen Delays from elongated sales cycles with additional layer of approval compared to previous quarter slowing our ability to convert our growing pipelines into revenue. That said, a leading indicator for revenue for this business is billings. And this quarter, We booked total contract value or TCV billings of $122,000,000 significantly higher than revenue for the 2nd consecutive quarter. TCV Building grew for the 4th consecutive quarters with 14% sequentially and 30.7%, 37% year on year growth.

Speaker 2

This growth was anchored on multiyear deals in our core government vertical, where we continue to have a lot of success. In the quarter, we closed one of the deals that slipped from Q4, with the other 2 still progressing well and likely to We also see 2 new large potential deals in government that will enter the pipeline. Given this pipeline and billings momentum, we expect to achieve full year revenue consensus and expect TCV billings for the year to be in the range of 430 to $480,000,000 Finally, we are reiterating the 3 year revenue growth CAGR of 9% to 12% that we gave at our Analyst Day. Gross margin for the quarter improved to 60%, which is 700 basis points higher than the prior year, largely due to product mix. In addition, the decline in ARR slowed and came in at $289,000,000 This trend is encouraging as we remain on track for ARR to return to sequential growth in the second half of this fiscal year.

Speaker 2

The dollar based net retention rate or DB NRR also stabilized at 81%. As a reminder, DB NRR doesn't include new logos. As mentioned in the quarter, we secured New, renewed and expanded business with a number of leading government institutions. This includes Share Service Canada, Transport Canada, the Canadian House of Commons, the U. S.

Speaker 2

Special Ops Command, the U. S. Navy, the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers, the White House Communication Agency and the U.

Speaker 2

S. Transportation Security Administration, or known as TSA. Outside North America, we secured business with the French Ministry of Defense, the German State Police, the Netherlands Ministry of General Affairs, The New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the British Transport Police, just to name a few. We also closed business in Healthcare and Financial Services, including Joint Mirror Health, Kaiser Permanente and Hartford Healthcare and a number of leading international banks. On the channel front, a critical element of scaling our SMB go to market presence, this quarter we saw promising sign of progress from our renewed channel programs.

Speaker 2

In North America, due registration and new logos brought by the channel increased significantly both sequentially and year over year. Turning briefly to product. Leading independent test lab, the Tolli Group, recently performed an Assessment of a number of endpoint protection platforms, EPPs, including Cylance endpoints, Microsoft Defender and others and tested performance for detection rates, CPU utilization and total scanning time. Cylance endpoint came out on top with a market leading 98.9% detection rate, both online and offline, while also using the lowest amount of CPU capacity. In comparison, competitors allow between 9 to 52 times more malware through than silence.

Speaker 2

Moving now to licensing. The past quarter, We were pleased to have closed the deal with key patent innovations for the sale of the non core portion of the patent portfolio. The deal includes an initial $170,000,000 cash payment, which we have received and the deal value could total as much as $900,000,000 over time. KPI has already started to ramp up their monetization activities, including adding to the experienced team by hiring executives and patent lawyers, as well as starting to engage with potential licensees. That said, it will take some time to be fully ramped up And we do not expect any meaningful additional revenue from the sale to be recognized this fiscal year.

Speaker 2

Under the terms To the deal, we retain ongoing revenue for any licensing arrangement in place prior to the sale. And in this quarter, This was $17,000,000 We expect revenue to be approximately $5,000,000 per quarter for the remaining of this fiscal year. Let me now hand the call over to Steve, who will provide more color on our financials. Steve?

Speaker 3

Thank you, John. As usual, my comments on our financial performance for the Q1 will be in non GAAP terms unless otherwise noted. Total company revenue for the quarter was $373,000,000 IoT revenue was $45,000,000 Cybersecurity revenue was $93,000,000 and licensing revenue was $235,000,000 Software product revenue as a percentage of total revenue remained in the range of 85% to 90% with professional services forming the balance. The percentage of software product revenue that was recurring remained at approximately 90%. The $235,000,000 of licensing and other revenue represents the $17,000,000 of revenue from pre existing arrangements that John mentioned earlier and $218,000,000 relating to the patent sale.

Speaker 3

More details will be available in our 10 Q. Related to this, dollars 147,000,000 there was $147,000,000 of intellectual property assets Previously classified as held for sale on our balance sheet, which were sold as part of the transaction. Accordingly, with the sale completed in Q1, These were reclassified to cost of sales. Total company gross margin was 48% and 22 percentage points higher when excluding the patent sale. Operating expenses for the Q1 were $145,000,000 These non GAAP operating expenses exclude a $22,000,000 fair value Expense on the convertible debentures, dollars 10,000,000 in amortization of acquired intangibles, dollars 8,000,000 in stock compensation expense and $5,000,000 in restructuring expenses.

Speaker 3

Both the non GAAP operating profit and non GAAP net profit for the Q1 were 35,000,000 The $0.06 non GAAP basic earnings per share for the quarter beat expectations. Adjusted EBITDA excluding the non GAAP previously mentioned was $41,000,000 Total cash, cash equivalents and investments increased by 91,000,000 to $578,000,000 as at May 31, 2023. Net cash generated from operations was $99,000,000 The cash generated from the patent sale strengthens our balance sheet and helps finance Given the macroeconomic backdrop, we remain selective on potential investments and remain committed to significantly reducing the level of EPS loss and operating cash flow usage this fiscal year. That concludes my comments, and I'll turn it back to John.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Steve. Before we open the line up for Q and A, I I'd like to touch on the announcement we made in May regarding the strategic review of our portfolio. Our strategy is clear. We have a robust Operating plans for both our business units to address the large and growing market opportunities. In addition, we see potential upside to the thesis From the convergence of cybersecurity with the IoT.

Speaker 2

Indeed, McKinsey recently issued a report on this trend of Convergence and named BlackBerry as being well positioned to capitalize on what they estimate to be a $750,000,000,000 TAM. We believe that executing against the strategy, hitting our 3 year's targets and achieving profitable Growth will generate significant shareholder value. Notwithstanding, the Board and management are constantly focused on optimizing shareholder values and have therefore asked question as to whether there are alternative approaches for delivering greater shareholder returns, for example, By means of the 2 businesses operating as standalone companies. As per our press release on May 1, we have engaged leading investment bankers, Morgan Stanley and Perullo Weinberg and establishing as well as establishing internal program management office to support this review, and I could tell investors that there's a lot of activity ongoing. Although the review is in the early stage, A lot of progress has already been made and the team is focusing on performing a thorough process as quickly as we practically can.

Speaker 2

It wouldn't be appropriate to provide further commentary until the Board has approved a specific outcome or has terminated its review. That ends my prepared remarks. Andrea, could you please open the line for Q and A?

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. Please make sure that your line is unmuted. And our first question will come from Luke Young of Baird. Please go

Speaker 4

ahead. Hi, there. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking the questions. First question, I want to ask about IoT.

Speaker 4

So you cited some temporary delays The start of new programs as a few of your customers view their software defined vehicle plans. I guess what I'm trying to understand is How close you are to these customers as they made that change and your level of confidence that this is solely a timing issue versus something that could be more disruptive. And related to that, should we be thinking about the low end of full year guidance? Or where would you expect to be within the guidance range given this

Speaker 2

Okay. Good question. So from the design delay, It's usually we base our forecast on the project being awarded to us Mostly. So it is embedded into our $640,000,000 backlog that we announced. So we already won the design.

Speaker 2

That's why we're expecting the development seat. So we have very high confidence and very close contact with these customers. And these are The huge big customer name around the world. So, I feel comfortable With that, there are, of course, design wins that may get affected in Q2, Q3 and Q4, But we wanted to make sure that we see that first before we make the adjustment. I personally believe that There might be some minor shifting of time frame, but nothing that we expected to not winning it Or I don't actually expect that there will be delay for too long.

Speaker 2

So that's that question. What is

Speaker 1

The outlook, John, would you be towards the bottom end of the range?

Speaker 2

Well, Tim has looked at the consensus number. And when we look at our range and our forecast, we feel comfortable with the consensus number. And I don't know what is high or low end. It's towards the low range. Okay.

Speaker 2

But I think you estimated based on the consensus number that should be reasonable for now.

Speaker 4

Okay. Thank you for that. And then for my follow-up, I want to stay within IoT, John. Could you just comment on The level of engagement that you've seen since Ivy's GA release earlier this month, I'm curious both with respect to OEMs and Tier 1 partners, if you could Comment and is there anything that has surprised you in the 1st month post release? Thank you.

Speaker 2

On the IV? Yes. I would rather not tell you the number of POC that is requested or ongoing, But it's reasonably significant. I'll just leave it as that. So Very high level of interest.

Speaker 2

Usually, Ivy runs into the competition in Ivy. Ivy is quite unique right now In the market, the competition that we run into is a customer themselves. They believe that they could build or they are building A data analytics platform that may not be as much as a edge to cloud, maybe it's mostly cloud implementation. But once they see the simplicity of our solution and the number of Application that we have lined up and will continue to line up, this is almost like building an app store For the car, they wanted a lot of them wanted to test IV under the POC And then make a determination whether they should continue doing their own or they come through with us. Some of them already decided That they are coming with us.

Speaker 2

So that's to the extent that I could comment on.

Speaker 4

I will leave it there. Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question comes from Mike Walkley of Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Speaker 5

Hi. Hey, Jeff. Hey, John. Switching gears maybe to the cybersecurity business, with the 4th consecutive quarter of billings growth, Can you share a little more color just what's driving the improving billings or maybe more specifically what solutions in the portfolio are some of these Most of your government contracts choosing?

Speaker 2

I think there's a number. First of all, we had a challenge we had 2 challenges in the past. We got one challenge is the SME for the UEM challenge, they were leaving us And there was a lot of churn in that. And that churn over the quarters, over the time has now stabilized. So that's number 1.

Speaker 2

Number 2, on UES, the Cylance product line, as you know, we were having trouble integrating it And we did integrate it and then we caught up on the EDR technology. We are now winning bake off. So we're comfortable with that and the customers are seeing that. So our renewal rate are now trending up Nicely and that is and winning new logo by replacing kind of the legacy folks In the S and P market, and that's why I also commented on the channel. The channel does bring us a lot more businesses than you should do.

Speaker 2

So those are the second part of it, reason. And then on we have a growth, Although now based on a little smaller number for both ad hoc, for the critical event management software, as well as the secure Communication software. And they are typically tied to government. And government problem is that it takes a long time. So, but they are all in very high renewal rate, Very high.

Speaker 2

In fact, we seldom ever lose one. It would be rare for us to lose the renewal. And we're winning new ones, but that takes time, as I said. So I feel that all the 4 components What makes up our cyber offering are all building some level of momentum And you're raising or addressing some of the issue, the pain point that we had.

Speaker 5

Great. That's very helpful. And maybe just a follow-up question. Just going back to IoT and Your big pipeline there, I know tough on the development fee timing, but as these new design wins turn to production, What are you thinking about in terms of revenue uptick in terms of what you're getting today from current royalties?

Speaker 2

So the first set of revenue that we're going to get on the design win that we had is the developer seat. As they get into A very strong development cycle. Typically, every OEM will buy more seats. And so that's And then they sometimes will require professional services help, which we also offer to make sure they get to use the Q and A The most efficient way. So those are the second one.

Speaker 2

Typically, an SOP, which is the start of production, On a design win, 3 to 4 years from the day we win it, but you see that I think that was going to accelerate Partly because of competition from China and some of the other Asian countries like Vietnam. They will I think they will compress the cycle. And so that's kind of I don't know whether I answered your question, that's kind of where we expect revenue to come in. So The 640,000,000 are literally beyond the this is only royalty. This is not Doesn't include professional services, doesn't include developer seat.

Speaker 2

So we will eventually get all that hopefully get if not all the majority of the $640,000,000 and we of course will continue to grow the $640,000,000

Speaker 5

Great. Well, thanks for my questions and congrats on finalizing the licensing sale.

Speaker 2

Thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Paul Treiber of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Hi, John. Good afternoon. I'm going to apologize upfront for asking an accounting question, but just on the can Can you explain that the high level reason for the revenue recognition on the patent sale of you received $170,000,000 cash and you're recognizing 2 $18,000,000 What's the reason for the difference there?

Speaker 2

I could ask Steve to tell you because I think we should recognize a lot more. But my accounting gurus all said that this is the right proper Constrained revenue, I think they used the word constrained. I have never used that term before. But I'll let Steve answer the question Of how this come about?

Speaker 3

Sure. So as we disclosed the details of the terms of the deal, There's a, you know, beyond the initial payment of the 170,000,000 which we did receive, There's a fixed amount that's due no later than a few years out and then there's some also A royalty component as well. So it's those other elements in short that under the accounting framework where The fixed piece, obviously, there's some discounting there that you apply to kind of net present value it back. And then only a very small component of the just the very near term on the royalty component. So the rest obviously will be recorded In future periods, when as the amounts become known over the next several years.

Speaker 6

And the earn out per se or the future royalty, like is it a risk adjusted measure? Or like How do the accountants arrive at that number?

Speaker 3

There's a basically there is a lot of factors that go into it and There is some risk waiting in it, but by no means does the accounting framework You know, allow you to kind of look at the full stream and value the full stream over the remaining period. So It's don't think of it as a fair value because the accounting does not represent the full fair value of that.

Speaker 6

Okay. That's helpful to understand. Just in terms of cash flow though, the if you take out the Patent sale this quarter, cash flow from operations was negative. What were the headwinds to cash flow this quarter?

Speaker 3

Our first I mean at the beginning of the year, usually that our typical profile Is to have net cash usage in the early part of the year. So in that regard, if you remove the amount Related to the IP sale, it's a similar profile to what we typically have over the course of the year And then generate in later periods.

Speaker 2

Paul, and it's driven by mainly by bonuses for last year's So called VIP payment and compensation.

Speaker 6

Okay. Good to know. The just last question, I'm not sure you can answer it, but I'll throw it out there. This arbitration in regards to the patent sale, Any comments there? Any sort of outlook on that?

Speaker 7

Well, we

Speaker 2

It's something that I shouldn't comment on. I think the lawyer won't like me to comment on it, but there's no merits to it and We will fight it vigorously and I don't think you need to worry about it.

Speaker 6

Thanks for taking the questions.

Speaker 2

Yes.

Operator

The next question comes from Daniel Chan of TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Hey, John. On the new software defined vehicle plans, you mentioned that there is timing differences. But just wondering if there's any changes To the scope of those programs that could either generate potential upside to what you originally had agreed to them?

Speaker 5

Yes.

Speaker 2

Will you or any one of the people in your firm gone to the MotorTrend event In CES, in Vegas this beginning of the year, the reason I asked that question is because nearly every OEM, We should try to get tickets for you guys in the future. Even every OEM is having a SDV brand, software defined vehicle. So yes, The scopes are expanding. We just don't want to get overly carry away with our estimates, but the scope is definitely expanding. It is truly a timing thing.

Speaker 2

We, in particular, one case, we are relying on some really good developer seats that didn't come in And that was purely a timing issue because they want to step up the program and there is some very visible public thing Public announcement that they are OEM major OEMs are reorganizing Some of their efforts and step out some of the car release days because of software. There are at least a handful of them. Because they're all my customer, I prefer not to mention here.

Speaker 8

Okay. That's helpful. Thanks for that. And then on the cybersecurity side, the billings that you won, any color on whether on how much Those were renewals versus new business. Thank you.

Speaker 2

That's interesting. I Don't have it. We could have Tim follow-up with you. I don't have to break down the 122.

Speaker 5

Okay, thanks. Just looking for

Speaker 8

some color on how much of that is just backfilling contracts that have expired versus

Speaker 7

how much of that?

Speaker 2

I would tell you the biggest one that was the most significant one was an extension of multiple number of years and also expanded the footprint on number of licenses. So in that case, it's both.

Speaker 5

Great. Thank you.

Speaker 2

Sure. Of course.

Operator

The next question comes from Tripp Chaudhry of Global Equities Research. Please go ahead.

Speaker 7

Congratulations, very good backlog and billing numbers. I have a question. In terms of Ivy, you have a very strong machine learning models for Cylance. And I was wondering, is there a way using maybe some transfer learning or some other secret sauce that this intellectual horsepower you have In the Cylance machine learning AI products, we could transpose it Into Ivy and if so, that would be great. So any thoughts you may have on that end?

Speaker 2

Yes. We Like every company, we all obviously are looking at this plan. So first off, our threat hunting Our group as always uses the AI and we recently just Offer the threat hunting services to customers. So in a way that It's all AI driven model. It's like 4 generation of that and we got 1,000,000,000.

Speaker 2

So we got literally 1,000,000,000 of malware profile The experience that we build the model based on the machine learning. So that's So you probably see that being a push. Now as if other AI Capability going into products, we haven't finalized that. We're in a business of going through it In the process of going through it, except I wanted to kind of we want to make sure that we don't Generate too much of a review too much of our internal model when we go into the OpenAI world. So we're literally in that kind of internal Analysis of it.

Speaker 2

And we're also waiting for the government. I think the government will have something to say about How the AI allowed to use and not allowed to use in the product, because we're very sensitive to governments. We We are a big provider of system or software to governments around the world. So we got to be very careful that we don't run a file with So those are the I have people working on both, developing the product as well as understanding the policy.

Speaker 7

Very good. A follow-up on the same IV and battery management system, which is very critical Confident of the modern electric vehicle. And again, you have technologies like in silence. And I was wondering If you may have thought about using the machine learning models that you already have, maybe it needs to be trained on a different set of datas to automate Maybe a battery management system for some performance enhancements, which could literally differentiate yourself and maybe you will be the only player Who can offer in a software defined vehicles complete intelligence in the battery management solutions. Any thoughts on that?

Speaker 7

And that's all for me.

Speaker 2

Yes, Tripp. Our lab people will know a lot more about that. And we of course will try to take advantage of the 2 from a business side. But it's not something that we are deep into yet, but that's a good suggestion.

Operator

The next question comes from Todd Coupland of CIBC. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Hey, Todd.

Speaker 9

Hey, John. I was wondering if you could talk about the expected quarterly cadence of IoT and Cyber. What does it look like for Q2 and then the back half of the year?

Speaker 2

I don't normally provide quarterly outlook, That's hard. That's a good one. Given the environment out there, I think we should be a little bit more cautious short term. And but the year, as I said, we feel good about our pipeline and all the deals that we're working on, Particularly the government deals from the cyber side, we're waiting for the OEMs on the vehicle side To kind of release their development schedules, so to speak. So those are the 2 major things that we have to look forward to look at examine very carefully and watch very carefully.

Speaker 2

So I would say, I expect Q2 to be probably a little better than Q1. And then I expect second half, as I said, particularly in the cyber side, I expect the ARR to return positive sequentially.

Speaker 9

Okay. Appreciate that. And then, what are your thoughts on your contract extension, which is coming up this I know you've talked about it in the past. If you have anything incremental to say there, we'd be interested. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2

It's a little complicated with the Imperium project. I'm waiting for kind of where the Imperium comes up with. Then I will Kind of made my own decision of what I wanted to do, but it's all in good hands. So don't worry about it. And I told the Board, let's wait for where the Imperium project is at and then we'll just make that decision.

Speaker 9

Right. And you had indicated there was a lot of activity around that Project, would you expect it still to take at least the summer before you get your initial findings or can it happen sooner than that?

Speaker 2

My guess will take because we have a lot of effort going on in When you look at separating the business, you have to look at the separating the income statement, that's an easy one. Then you have to separate the balance sheets and then you have to look at the tax Side of the equation and then you have to look at what the market offer and not offer and there's There's just a ton of thing that when you cannot just skip it, and so I still expect this to be the end of summer type

Operator

I would now like to turn the call back over to John Chen, Executive Chair and CEO of BlackBerry for any closing remarks.

Speaker 2

I don't have any closing remarks. Thank you everybody for participating. I'm always cognizant of the fact that you're in the East Coast And then, slate for you folks, and I appreciate it. So I'll talk to you guys more and Hopefully sooner than next quarter, if not, at least next quarter. Thank you all very much.

Speaker 2

Have a good evening.

Operator

That concludes today's conference. Thank you for attending today's presentation and you may now disconnect.

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