BlackBerry Posts 4Q Loss on Restructuring, Acquisition Costs

BlackBerry posted a quarterly net loss on Friday, mainly from restructuring and acquisition-related costs.

The smartphone industry pioneer reported a net loss of $238 million, or 45 cents a share, for the fourth quarter ended on Feb. 29, compared with year-earlier profit of $28 million, or 5 cents a share.

Excluding one-time items, the company posted a loss of 3 cents a share.

Analysts on average had forecast a loss of 10 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

BlackBerry said it expected its software and services revenue to grow faster than the overall mobility software market, at around 30 percent.

"We have clearly gained traction and market share in enterprise software," Chief Executive Officer John Chen said in a statement.

The company said it got just under a third of its revenue from software and services. Service access fees still contributed 29 percent, and 39 percent was from hardware and other revenue.

Software and licensing revenue for the year came to $527 million, exceeding BlackBerry's target of $500 million.

Shares of BlackBerry were down 2.6 percent at $7.88 in trading before the market opened.

(Reporting by Euan Rocha and Alastair Sharp; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Lisa Von Ahn)