BlackBerry’s Toronto-listed shares surged 8.5% on Tuesday as investors raised expectations that the technology company’s cybersecurity and automotive software will post strong growth, an analyst said.
This month’s global “ransomware” attack, dubbed WannaCry, has raised awareness of BlackBerry’s security software business, while prospects for sales of the company’s automotive software are on the up, said Nicholas McQuire, an enterprise research analyst at CC Insight.
The stock rose 9.1% in U.S. trading on Monday, a market holiday in Canada, after Ford Motor (F) said late on Friday that it would start using an “over the air” system to update software on its Sync 3 interactive touchscreen system, which runs on QNX software from BlackBerry.
BlackBerry (BBRY) shares rose C$1.21 cents to C$15.24 on the Toronto Stock Exchange. They dipped 0.3% to $11.29 in U.S. Nasdaq trading, following Monday’s rally.
A BlackBerry representative could not immediately be reached for comment.