BlackBerry’s share price up, posts improved revenues and plans new smartphones launch as CEO seeks turnaround

The efforts invested by the Chief Executive Officer of BlackBerry – Mr. John Chen – seem to be beneficial, because the shares of the Canadian smartphone manufacturer increased by more than 11% in morning trading on June 19th. This is the largest increase of the companys stock in more than half a year after BlackBerry posted a smaller loss than initially expected by analysts for the first quarter of the fiscal year.

Over the first financial quarter, ended May 31st, BlackBerry managed to cut its adjusted operating expenses by 57% in comparison to the ones posted for the same period a year ago, and by 13% from the fourth quarter.

This move was considered to be beneficial for the company, as it helped it generate a profit estimated at $23 million over the period, which was a way better than the $423 million loss posted in the fourth quarter and the $84 million year-earlier loss.

Mr. John Chen, who stepped in as a CEO in November 2013, commented the companys performance in a conference call, which was cited by Bloomberg: “I am really at the tail end of our restructure programs. Right now, everything that I’m doing is judiciously starting to lay the groundwork for revenue growth for next year.” He also expressed his belief that BlackBerry is to turn back to profitability in the financial year that ends in March 2016.

The CEO of the company Mr. Chen put a lot of efforts in order to cut the companys costs, which now resulted in posting a surprising profit. In addition, BlackBerry is still planning to launch new smartphones and upgraded mobile-management software until the end of the year.

The intentions of the company to continue presenting new smartphones, follows the successful launch of a new handset called the Z3 in Indonesia over the quarter. In addition, BlackBerry revealed that it has reached an agreement of collaboration with Amazon.com Inc. According to BlackBerrys reports, 1.6 handsets were shipped over the quarter, which is an increase from the 1.3 million units shipped in the 2014 financial fourth quarter.

Now, the sharp increase of the share price is the reason why more and more optimistic comments for the companys performance. As reported by the Financial Times, Chief Executive Officer of BlackBerry told the companys investors: “Our performance in fiscal Q1 demonstrates that we are firmly on track to achieve important milestones, including our financial objectives and delivering a strong product portfolio”.

BlackBerry was 9.33% up to close at 9.84 Canadian dollars per share yesterday, marking a one-year change of -32.51%.