BlackBerry Posts Quarterly Loss on Restructuring, Acquisition Costs

The smartphone industry pioneer reported a net loss of $238 million (roughly Rs. 1,578 crores), or 45 cents a share, for the fourth quarter ended on Feb. 29, compared with year-earlier profit of $28 million (roughly Rs. 185 crores), or 5 cents a share.

Excluding one-time items, the company posted a loss of 3 cents a share.

Analysts on average had forecast a loss of 10 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

BlackBerry said it expected its software and services revenue to grow faster than the overall mobility software market, at around 30 percent.

"We have clearly gained traction and market share in enterprise software," Chief Executive Officer John Chen said in a statement.

The company said it got just under a third of its revenue from software and services. Service access fees still contributed 29 percent, and 39 percent was from hardware and other revenue.

Software and licensing revenue for the year came to $527 million (roughly Rs. 3,495 crores), exceeding BlackBerry's target of $500 million (roughly Rs. 3,316 crores).

Shares of BlackBerry were down 2.6 percent at $7.88 in trading before the market opened.

© Thomson Reuters 2016