BlackBerry may be finding it tough to compete in a world now dominated by Android and iOS, but it isn’t finished yet. The company has just announced a net loss of $207M in Q2, significantly lower than had been expected and far lower than the $965M it lost in the same quarter last year.
The company is pinning its hopes on its new square-screened BlackBerry Passport phablet, and says that it anticipates breaking even by the end of the 2015 fiscal year. CNBC noted that BlackBerry CEO John Chen said back in April that it could return to profit on sales as low as 10M handsets a year …
The Passport phablet combines a large, square touchscreen with a hybrid physical keyboard that also responds to touch gestures for things like scrolling webpages and sliding across the keyboard to move the cursor.
While the company has so far been struggling to sell handsets, CIRP describing the company’s market share as too small to measure back in June, it has been picking up BBM subscribers on Android and iOS, with a combined total of 91M users across the three platforms.
The market responded well to the financials, shares in the company climbing by more than 8 percent. The full press release can be read below.
BlackBerry Narrows Non-GAAP Loss per Share to ($0.02) on Broad-Based Operational Progress in Fiscal 2015 Second Quarter
WATERLOO, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – Sep 26, 2014) – BlackBerry Limited (BBRY)(BB.TO), a global leader in mobile communications, today reported financial results for the three months ended August 30, 2014 (all figures in U.S. dollars and U.S. GAAP, except where otherwise indicated).
Q2 Highlights:
Cash and investments balance of $3.1 billion at the end of the fiscal quarter, up $11 million from the prior quarter
Normalized cash use of $36 million in the quarter, compared to $255 million in the prior quarter
Non-GAAP gross margin of 47.5%, driven by positive non-GAAP hardware gross margin
Breakeven non-GAAP operating margin
The EZ Pass Program has resulted in a total of 3.4 million licenses issued for BES10, a nearly three-fold increase from last quarter, with 25% of total licenses traded in from competitors’ Mobile Device Management platforms
91 million monthly active BBM users, up from 85 million in the prior quarter
Created the BlackBerry Technology Solutions unit, encompassing QNX (embedded software), Certicom (cryptography), Paratek (antenna tuning), the patent portfolio and the Internet of Things strategy
Announced an agreement to acquire Secusmart, a leader in high-security voice and text encryption, and recently announced the acquisition of Movirtu, a provider of virtual SIM solutions, after the end of the quarter
Q2 Results
Revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2015 was $916 million. The revenue breakdown for the quarter was approximately 46% for hardware, 46% for services and 8% for software and other revenue. During the second quarter, the Company recognized hardware revenue on approximately 2.1 million BlackBerry smartphones. During the second quarter, approximately 2.4 million BlackBerry smartphones were sold through to end customers, which included shipments made and recognized prior to the second quarter and which reduced the Company’s inventory in channel.
Non-GAAP loss for the second quarter was $11 million, or $0.02 per share. GAAP net loss for the second quarter was $207 million, or a $0.39 loss per share. The GAAP net loss includes a non-cash charge associated with the change in the fair value of the Debentures of $167 million (the “Q2 Fiscal 2015 Debentures Fair Value Adjustment”) and pre-tax restructuring charges of $33 million related to the restructuring program. The impact of these adjustments on GAAP net loss and loss per share is summarized in a table below.
Total cash, cash equivalents, short-term and long-term investments was $3.1 billion as of August 30, 2014. The Company used $36 million in the second quarter, excluding net receipts of $47 million related to non-strategic operations during the quarter. Purchase obligations and other commitments amounted to approximately $1.6 billion as of August 30, 2014, with purchase orders with contract manufacturers representing approximately $344 million of the total.
“We delivered a solid quarter against our key operational metrics, and we are confident that we will achieve breakeven cash flow by the end of FY15,” said John Chen, Executive Chairman and CEO, BlackBerry. “Our workforce restructuring is now complete, and we are focusing on revenue growth with judicious investments to further our leadership position in enterprise mobility and security, driving us towards non-GAAP profitability during FY16.”
Outlook
The Company continues to anticipate maintaining its strong cash position, while increasingly looking for opportunities to prudently invest in growth. The Company continues to target break-even cash flow results by the end of fiscal 2015.
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