The decline follows another announcement of the manufacturer axing all internal smartphone production
BlackBerry’s revenues for the three months ending August 31 fell by nearly a third from a year ago to £256 million.
These recent financials were revealed by CEO John Chen who also announced the company is ceasing all internal hardware manufacturing. The majority of revenue came from software and services at over £119 million. Its mobility arm only took in over £80 million, whilst more than £69 million came from service access fees.
No hardware shipment figures had been released for the quarter. Its mobility arm has seen significant decline in recent years. The former market leader sold just seven million devices last year, a notable drop from 52.3 million in 2011. Forecasters have predicted just 3.2 million this year.
Chen said the area with the most significant growth was BlackBerry’s software devision. He said: “In Q2, we more than doubled our software revenue year over year and delivered the highest gross margin in the company’s history.
“We also completed initial shipments of BlackBerry Radar, an end-to end asset tracking system, and signed a strategic licensing agreement to drive global growth in our BBM consumer business.”
New finance chief
BlackBerry has also appointed Steven Capelli as its new chief financial officer.
Steve will be active in the role from October 1 and will replace James Yersh, who was in the position from November 2013. Yersh will remain with BlackBerry until October 31 in an advisory role.
Capelli was previously president of worldwide field operations at enterprise software specialist Sybase between December 1997 and April 2012.
His new role at BlackBerry will see him lead the company’s corporate accounting, treasury, tax and investor relations teams. He will report directly to Chen.
Chen said: “Steve is a highly experienced and respected financial expert and a strong business partner. I look forward to the many contributions he will make toward driving value for BlackBerry shareholders as we continue to focus on end-to-end mobility solutions and enterprise software.”
