14 DAY TRIAL // Struggling company BlackBerry reported today its financial results for the first quarter of its fiscal 2016, which covered the three-month period ending on May 30.
The company said that, during the Q1 2016, they managed to ship 1.1 million smartphones with an average selling price of $240 / €213.
To compare, BlackBerry managed to sell around 1.6 million phones in Q4 FY15 and 2.6 million phones in Q1 FY15, so the figures that have been announced today mark a pronounced decline.
BlackBerry also saw increase in some departments
However, now things are majorly bleak on the BlackBerry font. The company says that its software and technology licensing revenue grew with an impressive 150% when compared to Q1FY15. The actual number being $137 million.
BlackBerry announced total revenue for the period of $658 / €585 million. This sum is divided into 40% hardware, 38% services and 21% software and technology licensing. The device maker’s total loss for the first quarter was of $28 / €24 million.
So even if BlackBerry’s hardware division didn’t fare out so well this quarter, its software subsidiary did see some encouraging growth.
Nevertheless, the Canadian company is far from being done pursuing its smartphone efforts. In recent days we told you that the company was looking to unveil a new Porsche Design model and new info surfaced about the so-called Prague and Venice models.
Interestingly enough, BlackBerry might be looking to dab into the Android ecosystem and release a smartphone powered by Google’s operating system, a first for the company.
Is BlackBerry capable of making a comeback?
It might be that the company is willing to tackle Android smartphones making a little bit too late, but if the company ends up putting its iconic physical keyboard on board of such a product, BlackBerry die-hard fans might have a hard time saying no to the device.
However, consistent growth in the software department seems to pinpoints to a clear strategy towards achieving stability. As BlackBerry’s CEO John Chen himself states, the strong performance in the software and technology division is the key to BlackBerry’s future growth.
Now all we need is to see the company leap out of the black hole, hardware-wise too.