What happened
Shares of BlackBerry Limited (BB 3.21%) were falling today after the company reported its fourth-quarter results. While BlackBerry beat analysts' consensus estimate for earnings, revenue fell below Wall Street's expectations.
The tech stock was down by 11.2% as of 12:24 p.m. ET.
So what
BlackBerry surprised analysts by posting non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings per share of $0.01 in the fourth quarter, far above the $0.03 loss per share that Wall Street was expecting. But the company's sales of $185 million -- down 12% year over year -- missed analysts' consensus estimate of $208 million.
Image source: Getty Images.
BlackBerry CEO John Chen said in a press release that the company was pleased with the progress in the quarter and added, "In addition to overcoming a number of industrywide challenges, such as supply chain constraints and the war in Ukraine, the QNX business set another record for quarterly design related revenue, demonstrating both strong fundamentals and momentum for the business." BlackBerry's QNX software is used in a variety of devices and is most notably used as an automotive operating system in nearly 200 million vehicles.
But investors were feeling less optimistic about BlackBerry than the company's management was. In addition to being disappointed with BlackBerry's revenue miss, they were also likely unhappy that BlackBerry's cybersecurity revenue was flat year over year at $122 million.
Now what
Investors weren't exactly reassured by the company's guidance for the full year, either. BlackBerry's management said on the company's earnings call that licensing revenue is expected to be "minimal" in fiscal 2023 and that its cyber security revenue will be "broadly flat year over year."
With the company missing revenue expectations for the fourth quarter and management issuing lackluster guidance, it's no wonder BlackBerry's share price is falling today.
