Two companies the iPhone era left for dead are running circles around the company that buried them.
Nokia Corp. (NYSE:NOK) is up roughly 105% year-to-date. BlackBerry Ltd. (NYSE:BB) is up about 58%. Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) — the company whose 2007 product launch effectively ended both of their consumer franchises — has gained just 8% over the same stretch.
The catalyst is the same name on both deal sheets. Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA).
From Brick Phones to Backbone Infrastructure
For context on how unusual this is, pull up a long-term chart. Nokia’s stock peaked above $60 in 2000 and spent the next 25 years drifting between $3 and $8. BlackBerry topped $140 in 2008 and traded under $10 for most of the last decade.
Both were classic examples of disruption: smartphone leaders that missed the touchscreen pivot and watched Apple absorb their addressable market.
The two companies survived by quietly reinventing themselves as software and infrastructure businesses. Nokia became a network equipment vendor competing with Ericsson and Huawei.
BlackBerry shed handsets entirely and built itself around QNX, a real-time operating system that, per the company’s own most recent disclosures, is now embedded in more than 275 million vehicles worldwide.
For years that was a slow story. In 2026 it stopped being slow.
Nokia: BofA Calls It The ‘Third Act’
The clearest institutional endorsement came on April 13, when Bank of America analyst Oliver Wong upgraded Nokia to Buy from Neutral, raising the price objective to €10.70 / $12.40 from €6.87 / $7.96.
The new target reflects a switch to sum-of-the-parts valuation, with optical and IP networks valued at 30x 2027 EBIT, in line with peers like Ciena and Arista Networks.
BofA framed the call as “Nokia’s third act,” following its mobile phone dominance and its transition into telecom equipment.
The thesis rests on hyperscaler-driven optical growth, the 400G-to-800G pluggable shift, a European data center switch opportunity, margin expansion in Mobile Infrastructure, and the Nvidia AI-RAN partnership.
The fundamentals backed the call. Nokia’s first-quarter 2026 results on April 23 delivered revenue of €4.5 billion, up 4% year-over-year, and comparable EPS of €0.05 versus €0.03.
Management raised the Network Infrastructure guide to 12-14% from 6-8%, and the combined IP and Optical Networks guide to 18-20% from 10-12%. Both upgrades cited AI and cloud demand.
BlackBerry: Same Catalyst, A Bit More Skeptical Street
BlackBerry’s setup is structurally similar, but the sell-side reaction has been the opposite.
Fiscal fourth-quarter 2026 results on April 9 delivered adjusted EPS of $0.06 against $0.04 expected, with revenue of $156 million versus $144.6 million expected.
QNX revenue grew 20% year-over-year in the quarter and 14% for the full year, with a royalty backlog of roughly $950 million. Management guided fiscal 2027 revenue to $584 million-$611 million, above consensus near $577 million.
The Nvidia integration arrived on April 20. QNX OS for Safety 8.0 was selected to run alongside Nvidia’s IGX Thor edge AI platform and Halos Safety Stack, targeting autonomous robotics, medical devices, and industrial automation.
BlackBerry shares jumped roughly 13-14% that session on volume nearly five times the three-month average.
And yet the sell-side stayed cautious.
The most recent analyst ratings on Benzinga, both dated April 10, came from Canaccord Genuity (Hold, target $4.40) and RBC Capital’s Paul Treiber (Sector Perform, $4.50).
The Street-high remains CIBC’s Todd Coupland at $6, set in April 2025. Consensus sits at $5.08 — below the current trading level near $6.22.
The skepticism centers on conversion. The $950 million backlog converts to revenue over years, not quarters. Design wins disclosed with Q4 — Leapmotor’s D19 premium electric SUV entering mass production in April, and a collaboration with German naval defense group TKMS tied to Canada’s submarine program — extend BlackBerry’s reach into China EVs and defense.
But QNX’s push into robotics, medical, and industrial AI is still early-stage, with the company framing the pivot around “physical AI” — safety-certified software for systems where regulators demand deterministic operation.
Bottom Line
Apple’s AI narrative in 2026 has centered on on-device intelligence rather than a clear position in the infrastructure layer where capital is moving.
Stocks tied to the AI infrastructure theme have been greatly rewarded by the market.
Nokia and BlackBerry sell the optical fibers, radio networks, and certified operating systems that AI workloads run on.
Less glamorous than the next iPhone. For 2026, considerably better-paying.
For now, the trade has worked. The harder question is whether the companies Apple buried have done enough to stay above ground when the AI cycle eventually cools.
Photo: Natalia Bostan / Shutterstock
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