eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
BlackBerry reported a mixed bag of financial results in its fiscal third-quarter 2015 earnings report on Dec. 19, with a continuing drop in GAAP revenue to $793 million, down 13.43 percent from the prior quarter, while also posting a welcome 28.5 percent reduction in GAAP losses, which totaled $148 million for the quarter. The third quarter ended on Nov. 29.
The $793 million in revenue is a drop from the $916 million posted in the company’s Q2 fiscal 2015 figures, which were reported back in September. The $148 million loss is a significant improvement from the $207 million loss that was posted at that time. The company’s per share loss was 28 cents, compared with a loss of 39 cents per share in Q2.
That $793 million Q3 revenue total is down 33.5 percent from the same quarter one year ago, when the company posted revenue of $1.19 billion.
BlackBerry said that its revenue for Q3 was split 46 percent from hardware sales and 46 percent from services, with 8 percent from software and other revenue, just as it was in Q2.
BlackBerry also announced that had $3.1 billion in cash and investments on hand at the end of the quarter.
In the third quarter, the company said it sold about 1.9 million BlackBerry smartphones, down from about 2.4 million smartphone sales in the second quarter.
BlackBerry CEO John Chen said in a statement that the company is continuing to reduce its losses as part of an eight-quarter plan to reach positive cash flow and that its recent product releases, such as the new BES 12 operating system and its latest smartphone models, will help fuel that ongoing progress.
“Our focus now turns to expanding our distribution and driving revenue growth,” said Chen.
BlackBerry “continues to target sustainable non-GAAP profitability some time in fiscal 2016,” the company said in a statement.
Also announced by the company on Dec. 18 is new support for Android 5.0 Lollipop in BlackBerry’s BES12 enterprise operating system, which will expand BlackBerry’s security and enterprise-centered technologies and features to Android Lollipop users. The latest BES12 OS was unveiled in November by the company as part of myriad new products aimed at attracting more enterprise users to once again look at its wares and services.
The BlackBerry of a year ago was an entirely different company, a larger, less laser-focused enterprise run by a different executive team, according to an earlier eWEEK report. Chen has trimmed his staff and made other changes to work to turn the company around.
The company just launched its latest new smartphone, the $449 BlackBerry Classic, on Dec. 17, just a few months after unveiling its $599 BlackBerry Passport smartphone for enterprise users back in September.
BlackBerry’s fall from dominating the enterprise smartphone market has been swift and stunning. BlackBerry spent much of 2012 and 2013 trying to shake off the image that it was finished, especially compared with its presence five years earlier when its devices were the “enterprise gold standard” for mobile business communications, according to earlier eWEEK reports. In early 2006, half of all smartphones sold were BlackBerry models. By 2009, though, its share of the global smartphone market was down to 20 percent.