BlackBerry Rewarded for Software Shift with Record Sales

BlackBerry beat expectations today reporting a profit of $19 million USD or four cents per share, a stronger-than-expected net income for the company’s second quarter.

The Waterloo-based company shifted their focus from hardware to software last year, halting the production of the once widely-used BlackBerry smartphone after losing market share to Apple and Samsung.

BlackBerry’s total revenue for Q2 was $238 million. Nearly three-quarters came from software and services that hit $185 million in sales—a record for the company.

“We achieved historical highs in total software and services revenue and gross margin, as well as the highest non-GAAP operating margin in over five years, reflecting our complete transformation to a software company,” said BlackBerry CEO John Chen in a release.

Chen also explained how BlackBerry has made “significant progress” on key growth initiatives including enterprise billings, which grew 19 percent year over year. The company also expanded sales channels for its IoT platform in Q2. More than half of revenue generated in the second quarter came from North American clients.

BlackBerry has also strengthened their position in security software, reporting its cloud-based FedRAMP program grew to 300,000 licensed users, up 162 percent over Q1.

“Based on our progress thus far in FY18, we are on track to achieve software and services revenue growth in the range of 10 percent to 15 percent and profitability for the full year,” Chen added.

The results from the latest quarter are a good sign for the company that’s rebounding from a $372 million loss last year.

This morning, BlackBerry shares were up nearly 13 per cent to 13 cents per share.