BlackBerry Sees Light At The End Of The Tunnel

It looks like BlackBerry’s ongoing transformation from hardware to software is paying off, with its Q3 financial report forecasting positive times ahead as the company expects to be profitable by 2017.

It reported non-GAAP revenue of $301 million (£244m) and GAAP revenue of $289 million (£233m), with 55 percent coming from Software & Services, 23 percent from Mobility Solutions and 22 percent from Service Access Fees (SAF).

GAAP net loss for the quarter was $117 million (£95m) but, with approximately 80 per cent of the Q3 Software & Services segment revenue recurring and hardware costs continuing to decline, the long term future for the company is looking than it has for some time.

Software focus

“We achieved significant milestones in Q3, delivering the highest gross margin in the company’s history for the second consecutive quarter and continuing to transform our infrastructure and operations to support an enterprise software business,” said John Chen, BlackBerry’s executive chairman and CEO. “These accomplishments drove operating profitability in all business segments and overall positive non-GAAP EPS.”

“We remain on track to deliver 30 percent growth in company total software and services revenues for the full fiscal year.  We are raising our outlook on profitability for FY17. We now expect to achieve non-GAAP EPS profitability for the full year, up from a prior range of breakeven to a five cent loss. We also anticipate breakeven non-GAAP EPS and approximately breakeven free cash flow in Q4.”

The company also now has a $1 billion (£809 million) pile of cash to fall back on, excluding $605 million (£490m) in the face value of the company’s debt.

BlackBerry first announced that it would stop making smartphones in September this year in order to focus its resources on software and services after a dramatic fall in share price over the last few years.

Earlier this month the software transitioned unveiled as the company unveiled a mobile security platform called BlackBerry Secure, targeted at the ‘Enterprise of Things’ and with the aim of helping businesses manage their mobile and connected devices and provide secure communications.

Quiz: How much do you know about the last few years of BlackBerry’s story?