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March 30, 2015

Fourth Quarter Profits Cannot Keep BlackBerry's Revenue Up

It seems that for the fourth quarter, BlackBerry was actually able to astonish Wall Street with impressive results. BlackBerry announced that during the quarter, which ended February, 28, software revenue grew 24 percent from the previous quarter and 20 percent year-on-year to $67 million.

Unfortunately, since this only represents 10 percent of its overall revenue, the company still witnessed about a 32 percent drop year-over-year to $660 million. The total breakdown came in as 42 percent for hardware, with approximately 1.3 million smartphones, 47 percent for services and 10 percent for software.

BlackBerry’s CEO, John Chen is confident that the company’s turnaround is still on track, due to the fact that the main focus is now on software and not hardware. BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) 12 introduced a new, scalable architecture and streamlined user experience that consolidates enterprise mobility management (EMM) control in a single console.

Although the focus has shifted to software and services, it appears that BlackBerry has not completely given up on hardware. At this year’s Mobile World Congress, the company launched the BlackBerry Leap smartphone and at the Cebit trade show in Germany it announced an Android tablet that will have special security features.

Last year, Chen talked about a two year plan to get BlackBerry back on its feet. He is confident that the company is moving in the right direction as he said, "Our focus this past year was on getting our financial house in order while creating a multi-year growth strategy and investing in our product portfolio. We now have a very good handle on our margins, and our product roadmaps have been well received. The second half of our turnaround focuses on stabilization of revenue with sustainable profitability and cash generation."

For those who are interested in some of the highlights for the fourth quarter results, they are as follows;

  • Normalized positive cash flow of $76 million in the quarter, reversing normalized cash use of ($784) million in Q4 FY14
  • Cash and investments balance of $3.27 billion at the end of the fiscal quarter, an increase of $608 million over Q4 FY14 and matching the highest balance in company history
  • Non-GAAP earnings of $0.04 per share, reversing a loss per share of ($0.08) in Q4 FY14
  • Non-GAAP operating income of $2 million reversing an operating loss of ($156) million in Q4 FY14
  • Non-GAAP gross margin of 48.3 percent and GAAP gross margin of 48.2 percent, with a third consecutive quarter of positive hardware gross margin
  • Software revenue of $67 million, a 20 percent increase over Q4 FY14
  • Announced a partnership with Google to support Android for Work
  • Completed the acquisition of Secusmart, a leader in high-security voice and text encryption
  • After the quarter at Mobile World Congress, announced the full-touch BlackBerry Leap and unveiled the upcoming BlackBerry device portfolio
  • Also at Mobile World Congress, announced the BlackBerry Experience Suite software portfolio that brings BlackBerry's productivity, communication, collaboration and security across all smartphone and tablets running - iOS, Android, and Windows
  • Other product announcements at Mobile World Congress included BES 12 Cloud, integration of WorkLife and SecuSUITE with Samsung KNOX, and Vodafone Germany's rollout of Secusmart technology



Edited by Dominick Sorrentino


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