Despite miss, BlackBerry is gaining momentum: CEO

BlackBerry CEO John Chen told CNBC on Friday the company is picking up momentum after its earnings report showed a bigger-than-expected decline in revenue.

Disappointing hardware sales contributed to third-quarter sales of $793 million, compared with a consensus estimate of $931.5 million.

The company was able to meet its goal of becoming cash flow neutral, reporting an operating income of a penny.

Chen told "Squawk Alley" the company still has a few quarters of transition ahead, but he aims to grow the business in fiscal year 2016.

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He said he felt good about the prospects for BES12, the company's mobile enterprise platform that works with Android, iOS, and Windows operating systems. Blackberry has doubled the number of licences for clients who want to trade up to BES12 in the last 90 days, with 30 percent-plus of 6.8 million licenses coming from competitors, he said.

The company is booking its BES12 business on a subscription basis, so investors should expect revenue to come more steadily downstream.

Enterprises are dying for high-security, high-privacy systems, he said.

Asked whether Sony could have avoided its recent high-profile cyberattack if it were a Blackberry-only business, Chen said he did not have enough information to comment, but asserted Blackberry devices were more secure than any hardware on the market.