Blackberry ups full-year forecast despite revenue fall and growing losses
Declining revenue at former phone-maker Blackberry continued in the latest quarter, but the former star tech company has increased its full-year forecast.
Sales fell to $289m in the third quarter to the end of November. That was down 47 per cent on the same period last year and 13 per cent on the previous quarter as net losses grew to $117m, or 22 cents per share compared to $89m a year earlier.
The firm, which is transitioning from a hardware to a software company, trumpeted a 67 per cent growth margin, however, while adjusted earnings were $9m, or two cents per share, slightly ahead of expectation.
“We achieved significant milestones in the third quarter, delivering the highest gross margin in the company’s history for the second consecutive quarter and continuing to transform our infrastructure and operations to support an enterprise software business," said chief executive and executive chairman John Chen.
The company officially called time on the Blackberry era in September to focus on hardware after failing to keep up with the Apple's and Samsung's of the world in the ever competitive smartphone race. However, it last week announced a licensing deal with China's TCL to use the Blackberry name on its phones.
The Canadian firm upped its full-year outlook to profit from previous forecasts of between a five cents loss and breakeven. Chen expressed confidence in his target of 30 per cent growth for its software and services sales which now account for 55 per cent of the business.