Waterloo, Ontario — BlackBerry reported higher year-on-year fourth quarter net and operating losses.
Net loss for its fiscal fourth quarter, ended March 1, was $423 million, up from the year-ago $98 million loss, but down from a fiscal third quarter loss of $4.4 billion.
Operating loss for the fiscal fourth quarter was $537 million, up from the year-ago $12 million loss but down from a fiscal third quarter loss of $5 billion.
Fourth quarter revenues fell on a year-over-year basis by 64 percent to $976 million.
The company said it reduced its operating expenses by 51 percent in the fourth quarter compared with the first quarter.
In the quarter, the company shipped 1.3 million smartphones, down from the third quarter’s 1.9 million, and sold through 3.4 million phones to end users. Of the 3.4 million, 2.3 million used the older BlackBerry 7 OS, not the BlackBerry 10 OS launched over a year ago to turn around the company’s fortunes.
However executive chairman/CEO John Chen said its fourth quarter losses were less than the third quarter and that BlackBerry has reached its expense-reduction target one quarter ahead of schedule, “is on sounder financial footing today with a path to returning to growth and profitability,” and is targeting break-even cash flow “by the end of fiscal 2015.”
Cash on hand amounted to $2.7 billion, down from the previous quarter’s $3.2 billion.
In the quarter, the company generated 37 percent of its revenue from hardware sales, 56 percent from services, and 7 percent from software and other sources.
For the full fiscal year, revenues shrank 38.5 percent to $6.8 billion, operating losses rose to $7.16 billion from $1.24 billion, and net losses climbed to $5.87 billion from a year-ago loss of $646 million.
