BlackBerry had a lot riding on the Priv, the first Android-powered handset that it ever came out with, and while many expected that the smartphone will be able to improve the company’s fortunes it didn’t perform quite as well as the Canadian company would have hoped. BlackBerry Priv sales have missed expectations, once again leading to speculation about the future of the company’s hardware business.
In its financial results for the fourth fiscal quarter, BlackBerry confirmed that it only shipped around 600,000 units of the BlackBerry Priv. That’s shipped, not sold, which means some of those units could be sitting on shelves right now instead of being inside someone’s pocket or bag. Analysts had expected over 800,000 units being shipped.
The company’s total adjusted sales for the fiscal fourth quarter came in at $487 million. It’s focus on software appears to be paying off for now. BlackBerry reported $527 million in software sales during the fiscal year 2016 which turned out to be higher than the $500 million target CEO John Chen had set for the year.
Based on its strong software sales BlackBerry maintains its prediction of becoming profitable in the coming year and also growing revenue by as much as 30 percent in fiscal 2017, again based on strong software sales.
The company isn’t giving on its hardware business just yet even though it has been quite a while since it launched a handset powered by its own operating system. Chen has recently hinted that BlackBerry might do a mid-range Android device in order to appeal to more customers.
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