BlackBerry continues to fight; reports positive Q1 revenues
by Dan Ilika
First quarter earnings of $3.1-billion, up 15 per cent from $2.7-billion in previous quarter
WATERLOO, Ont.—Struggling smartphone maker BlackBerry continues to keep its head above water in the cut throat wireless device market, reporting a 15 per cent spike in revenues for the quarter.
The Waterloo, Ont.-based firm says revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2014 was $3.1-billion, up 15 per cent from $2.7-billion in the previous quarter and up nine per cent from $2.8-billion in the same quarter of fiscal 2013.
Revenue breakdown for the quarter was approximately 71 per cent for hardware, 26 per cent for service and three per cent for software and other revenue.
During the quarter, BlackBerry shipped 6.8 million smartphones and approximately 100,000 PlayBook tablets.
Adjusted losses for the quarter came in at $67-million.
“During the first quarter, we continued to focus our efforts on the global roll out of the BlackBerry 10 platform,” BlackBerry president and CEO Thorsten Heins said in a statement.
“We are still in the early stages of this launch, but already, the BlackBerry 10 platform and BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 are proving themselves to customers to be very secure, flexible and dynamic mobile computing solutions.”
Looking forward, the company released little in terms of a forecast for the remainder of the year, saying the competitive nature of the smartphone industry makes “it difficult to estimate units, revenue and levels of profitability.”
