Hey wow, BlackBerry reports a tiny profit

Canada’s most well-known tech company is finally back in the black.

Struggling smartphone maker BlackBerry today reported a profit of $23 million, or 4 cents a share, on total revenue of $966 million. That net income is based on generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), which consider the company’s real estate sales and a tax refund. Excluding those items, BlackBerry’s adjusted loss for the first fiscal quarter of 2015 totaled $60 million, or 11 cents a share — substantially less than the 26 cents per share loss analysts anticipated.

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“Over the past six months, we have focused on improving efficiency in all aspects of our operations to drive cost reductions and margin improvement,” said BlackBerry CEO John Chen in a statement. “Looking forward, we are focusing on our growth plan to enable our return to profitability.”

Today’s earnings report suggests a return to stability for BlackBerry, which has been shedding revenue at a perilous rate. Revenue declined only 1% compared to the previous quarter.

To return BlackBerry to profitability, Chen has focused on cutting costs dramatically and pivoting the company’s core business to software and services, which produced 61% of the company’s revenue this past quarter. Operational costs declined to $400 million, a 40% drop from the same period last year, while research and development costs dropped by almost 34% to $237 million.

The markets rewarded BlackBerry for its better-than-expected earnings report this morning. The company’s stock is up 13.6% at the time of publication.