Blackberry reports falling revenue, but loss shrinks
BlackBerry’s revenue continued its dive in the three months to Nov. 29, but on Friday the company reported a smaller loss than a year earlier.
Revenue for the three months, BlackBerry’s third fiscal quarter, fell to US$793 million, compared to $916 million in the preceding three months and $1.19 billion a year earlier.
The company reported a net loss of $148 million for its third fiscal quarter, compared to a loss of $207 million in its second. In its first quarter, however, it had reported a small profit. A year earlier, it reported a monster $5 billion loss, which included a $1 billion inventory write-down and a $2.7 billion impairment charge.
Since then, the company has worked to reduce its recurring costs: Cost of sales is less than half what it was a year ago, and selling, marketing and administration expenses less than a third.
The company has also, however, halved its research and development spending over the last year.
For the year ahead, the company continues to anticipate break-even or better cash flow from its operations. It is expanding its distribution capability in anticipation of demand for its recently launched Passport and Classic smartphones, the but doesn’t expect this to have significant effects until at least March.
The company is increasingly focused on generating revenue from its enterprise mobile device management tools, and on Friday announced that its software, BES12, recently added support for Android 5.0 (Lollipop).
