WATERLOO: Shares of BlackBerry Ltd tumbled by more than 6% in pre-market today, after the company announced its earnings results for the fourth fiscal quarter. While revenue came in short of Street expectations, the bottom line picture was relatively better.
For the three months ended on February 29, Blackberry’ s revenue declined by 30% year-over-year (YoY) to $464 million, considerably below a consensus estimate of $563 million. The figure also reflected a sequential decline of 15.3%. However, the company did manage to lower its loss by 25% YoY to 3 cents per share. This was considerably better than the 10 cents per share loss projected by the Street.
Software and services contributed 32% to the overall revenue, while service access fees (SAF) formed 29% of the figure. The remaining 39% came from hardware and other services. During the quarter, the company catered to 3,600 clients on the enterprise side, with roughly 70% of revenue earned through software being recurring. CEO, John Chen, appeared content with the company’s performance with regards to the enterprise software. Total revenue earned through software and services more than doubled, when compared to the same quarter last year, at $153 million.
“We have clearly gained traction and market share in enterprise software. We more than doubled our software and licensing revenue in Q4 and exceeded our target of $500 million for the full year,” he said. Management is projecting a 30% growth in software and services. “Looking to FY 2017, our strategy is on track and our growth engines are in place to continue to generate above market growth in software and achieve our profitability objectives” said Mr. Chen.
