Blackberry reports worse quarter loss than expected

Blackberry reports worse quarter loss than expected. The Smartphone Company, Blackberry, on Tuesday, reported a fiscal first quarter loss of $28 million. The loss reported was a bit worse than what the market analysts had previously thought. According to the Thomson Reuters, the company suffered a loss of 5 cents per share which was more than what the analysts thought, 3 cents a share. The company also reported revenue of $658 million, which was slightly lower than the previous year and the estimates of $679 million.

Image: thestar.com

The company may not be doing well on the smartphone front, but it seems to be catching up in terms of the software. Although the sales of the smartphone fell, the software sales went up by 150 percent, standing at $137million.

The Blackberry Executive Chairman and Chief Executive, John Chen said, “I am pleased with the strong performance of our software and technology business. This is the key to Blackberry’s future growth. Our Financials reflect increased investment to sales and customer support for our software business. In addition, we are taking steps to make our software business profitable.”

During the course of the quarter, Blackberry also reported its successful acquisition of WatchDox, a company that provides secure enterprise file-sync-and share solutions. It also approached companies like Compal Electronics and Winstron and entered into agreements with them. These agreements will help Blackberry to bring new devices to the market quickly and streamline their supply chain for wider distribution of their products. Blackberry also said that they had entered into a long term cross-licensing agreement with Cisco which would earn them extra funds. However, the details of the deal were kept confidential as nothing else was revealed.

John Chen also defended the company against the recent suggestions of some analysts to stop making phones that the people would be interested to buy. Although he did admit that the sale of handsets has been a problematic area in the recent years but he said that more phones will launch at the end of this year with new business models. By refusing to exit the smartphone market, Blackberry left people guessing that what will be their next move in terms of handsets and what would be the price range.