The shares of mobile and software company BlackBerry Ltd. went up after the company recorded a record-breaking software revenue, adding that the total sales for this year are expected to be at the high end of their forecast.
The Ontario-based company announced that it witnessed an 11.5% increase in their sales from enterprise software and services, with revenue hitting $97 million in the quarter that ended November 30th. The company further added that their sales were boosted by the 3,000 orders they received from clients such as NATO, the U.S. Department of Justice, the Dutch government and Deutsche Bank AG.
The Chief Executive Officer of the company John Chen during an interview with Bloomberg stated that “We really do have a lot of people that want to do business with us.” After the revenue report, their stock gained by 14%, trading at $12.36 at the NYSE, a figure that represented its biggest intraday increase since Sept. 28.
The company’s revenue has been on a steady decline over the years, but so far this year, Blackberry has begun taking the shape of a high-margin software company Chen has been crafting ever since he became CEO four years ago. At the moment, the company’s major software makes it easy for companies and governments to manage and protect their employees’ mobile devices. They, however, face stiff competition in this market from tech heavyweights International Business Machines Corp. and VMware Inc.
With the company letting go of their hardware engineers, Blackberry has now taken the shape of a software company. It currently has 1,200 salespeople in the field trying to beat its competitors to new customers. On Wednesday, the company released an optimistic statement as they are confident they would meet their forecast for full-year 2018 revenue of $920 million to $950 million.
According to the details of their revenue, the total adjusted revenue was $235 million in the third quarter, a figure that was above the average analyst estimate of $217.1 million. The company further added that their earnings per share (EPS) after some costs were excluded stood at 3 cents, which is better than the forecast made by analysts.
CEO Chen is currently working on new license deals for the large patents that the company has during its smartphone days. Chen said that the expected revenue from those deals would be around $100 million annually, though he intends to increase that much later.
