Surprise! BlackBerry reports a profit for the fourth quarter although revenue comes in below expectations

BlackBerry surprised Wall Street and Main Street by reporting that it earned a profit of $28 million, or 5 cents a share, for the fourth quarter ended February 28th. A year earlier, the company reported a loss of $148 million, or 28 cents a share. Removing one-time items from the bottom line, BlackBerry turned a profit of $20 million, or 4 cents a share. Wall Street expected the company to report a loss of 4 cents a share for the period. The company sold-through 1.6 million handsets during the quarter

BlackBerry CEO John Chen said that the company will now focus on revenue. "Our financial viability is no longer in question. We're now turning our attention to revenue stabilization," the executive said after it was announced that revenue for the quarter was $660 million. That was well below last year's total of $793 million, and analyst expectations of $786.4 million. Software revenue rose 20% to 67 million. That is a meaningful number considering that BlackBerry is rumored to be thinking about life as a software-only company. Hardware revenue declined 22% year-over-year and 23% sequentially.


As for the current quarter, Chen admits that analysts' prediction of a small per-share loss for the current quarter is on target, but said that "we do intend to do better." A report to clients from Morgan Stanley sent out earlier this month suggested that both the BlackBerry Passport and the BlackBerry Classic are struggling in the marketplace.

source: Reuters