BlackBerry Shares Tumbled After Company Posts Wider-than-expected Loss

BlackBerry Ltd. shares slumped 7.5% in premarket trade Friday, after the mobile device maker reported a wider-than-expected loss for its fiscal second quarter. The company said it had net income of $51 million, or 10 cents per basic share, in the quarter, after a loss of $207 million, or 39 cents per basic share, in the year-earlier period. The company had a diluted loss per share of 24 cents in the quarter, narrower than the 39 cents loss posted a year ago. The statement said basic GAAP net income includes a purchase accounting impact on GAAP revenue, a non-cash credit associated with the change in the fair value of debentures of $228 million, pre-tax charges of $85 million related to restructuring, stock compensation of $14 million, and amortization of acquired intangibles of $11 million. Excluding those items, the company had a loss per share of 13 cents, a penny wider than the FactSet consensus of 12 cents. Revenue totaled $490 million, way below the $916 million recorded in the year-earlier period. The revenue number includes a purchase accounting write down of deferred revenue stemming from the company's acquisition of WatchDox. The FactSet consensus was for revenue of $809 million. The company said it is planning to launch a handheld device called Priv that will run on the Android operating system and use BlackBerry security. Shares have fallen 36% in the year so far, while the S&P 500 is down 6%.