Despite earnings beat, BlackBerry shares drop slightly in late trading

Shares in BlackBerry Ltd. dropped slightly in after-hours trading today despite the company beating analyst’ expectations for its latest quarterly earnings.

For the third quarter that ended Nov. 30, BlackBerry reported a net loss of $4 million, or a penny per share, on revenue of $169 million, down from a net profit of $74 million, or 13 cents a share, and $184 million in revenue in the same quarter of last year. Analysts were expecting a loss of eight cents per share on revenue of $164 million.

Internet of Things revenue came in at $51 million, up 19% year-over-year, with a gross margin of 80%. Cybersecurity revenue was $106 million, with billings of $103 million. Software services totaled $157 million, and licensing and other revenue came to $12 million.

BlackBerry reported a net loss of $2 million and an adjusted loss of $28 million. Total cash, cash equivalents and investments sat at $505 million as of the end of the quarter.

Highlights in the quarter included BlackBerry making its QNX operating system available on Amazon Web Services Inc. The support allows automakers to run QNX on Amazon EC2 cloud instances to develop and test new vehicle software.

BlackBerry was selected by Dayin Technologies Co. Ltd. to develop acoustic solutions for Great Wall Motor’s next-generation vehicles. Human Horizons Technology Co. Ltd. also picked QNX to power its autonomous driving controller and digital cockpit in its HiPhiZ vehicle.

On the cybersecurity side, BlackBerry launched Cyber Threat Intelligence, a service that helps customers prevent, detect and effectively respond to cyberattacks. The company also strengthened its cybersecurity services with improved threat identification, remediation capabilities and endpoint support.

“Our IoT business has strong momentum and delivered a record quarter for design-phase revenue, driven largely by design wins in core safety-critical auto and general embedded domains,” John Chen, executive chairman and chief executive officer of BlackBerry, said in a statement. “It was also a strong quarter for product development, including a significant announcement with AWS for QNX to be made available in the cloud.”

BlackBerry did not disclose its outlook in its general release and planned to do so in an investor call. Notes from the investor call were not immediately available.

Despite the beats on revenue and earnings, shares in BlackBerry were down about 1% in late trading.

Photo: BlackBerry