BlackBerry quarterly revenue misses estimates
BlackBerry reported quarterly revenue on Friday that fell short of analysts' expectations, but managed to post a small adjusted profit and positive cash flow.
The company reported a net loss of $148 million, or 28 cents a share in the quarter ended Nov. 29. That compared with a year earlier loss of $4.4 billion, or $8.37 a share. Excluding one-time items the company earned 1 cent a share.
Revenue for the quarter came in at $793 million, against the comparable year-ago figure $1.19 billion a year ago.
Analysts expected BlackBerry to report a loss of 5 cents per share on revenue of $932 million, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.
After initially trading higher on the announcement, BlackBerry's Nasdaq-listed shares fell in premarket trading. (Get the latest quote here.)
Cash flow was positive $43 million in the third quarter, while the company had negative cash flow of $36 million in the second quarter. BlackBerry had said it was targeting break-even cash flow by the end of the fiscal year in February 2015.
Colin Gillis, tech analyst at BGC Partners in New York, said BlackBerry Chief Executive Officer John Chen did a good job controlling expenses to boost the company's cash pile.
"The fact that he overachieved by turning cash flow positive this quarter. That's a great milestone," said Gillis. "It gets easier from here."
BlackBerry launched its long-awaited Classic smartphone on Wednesday, hoping to help win back market share and woo customers still using older versions of its physical keyboard devices. The phone resembles its once wildly popular Bold and Curve handsets.
Separately, the company said it has completed its acquisition of Secusmart, a privately held firm that specializes in voice and data encryption.
Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry agreed to buy the German maker of encryption and anti-eavesdropping services in July, in a move to burnish its credentials with highly security-conscious clients like government agencies. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Earlier this week, the company launched the BlackBerry Classic—a device that builds "a future by curating the best parts of our recent past," according to CEO John Chen. The phone represents a doubling down on the physical keyboard and enterprise business that represented the core draws in the earlier days of smartphones.
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Beyond this move, Chen has also hinted that BlackBerry will be looking to make acquisitions to help bolster its offerings. In November, the company announced partnerships with Samsung and Salesforce.com for its device security and management business.
—CNBC's Everett Rosenfeld and Reuters contributed to this report.