Technology

BlackBerry Continues to Rally Despite Mixed Q2 Results

Chris Lange

Published: September 28, 2017 9:55 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 7:42 am

BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ: BBRY) released its fiscal second-quarter financial results before the markets opened Thursday. Although results were mixed, BlackBerry is continuing its incredible rally in 2017. Excluding Thursday’s move, the stock was up 34% year to date.

The company said that it had a net loss of $0.05 per share and $249 million in revenue, compared to consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters that called for breakeven earnings and revenue of $219.91 million. The same period of last year reportedly had breakeven earnings and $352.0 million in revenue.

In the most recent quarter, the company had record software and services revenue totaling $196 million. Approximately 79% of second-quarter software and services revenue (excluding IP licensing and professional services) was recurring. BlackBerry had approximately 3,300 enterprise customer orders in the quarter.

In terms of the outlook for the 2018 fiscal year, the company expects to see positive non-GAAP EPS and revenues in the range of $920 million to $950 million. Consensus estimates are $0.04 in EPS and $919.53 million in revenue.

On the books, BlackBerry’s cash, cash equivalents and short-term and long-term investments totaled approximately $2.5 billion at the end of the quarter, up from $1.38 billion at the end of the previous fiscal year.

John Chen, executive chairman and CEO of BlackBerry, commented:

I am pleased with our strong execution in Q2. 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. More importantly, we made significant progress on our key growth initiatives. Our enterprise billings grew 19 percent year over year driven by our Unified Endpoint Management platform. We secured important design wins in our automotive business, and we expanded our sales channels for our Radar IOT solution. In our licensing businesses, we have a growing pipeline of opportunities with our BlackBerry Secure software and our IP portfolio.

Shares of BlackBerry traded up 13% early Wednesday to $10.43, with a consensus analyst price target of $9.74 and a 52-week range of $6.65 to $11.74.