BlackBerry exceeds revenue expectations with $141.8 million in Q3, driven by record QNX performance and strong secure communications growth.

With industrial automation companies. The first was with one of our longtime customers, Bentley Nevada, an industry leader in online condition monitoring used for wind turbines and other applications who has adopted SDP8. Additionally, two leading industrial automation OEMs, one North American and one European, have also adopted SDP8 to be used in a variety of their applications from robotics to manufacturing production. We also had an exciting development in the Aerospace and Defense vertical with NASA who are adding QNX SDP8 to their supported operating systems. Earlier this year we launched QNX General Embedded Development Platform or GEDP as we call it, which is a subscription based solution tailor made for OEMs in GEM verticals. GEDP aims to accelerate the time to market for developers of embedded systems and feedback from our customers so far has been extremely positive as they can leverage this platform for all supported versions of QNX across their portfolio. In the quarter we saw a number of new design wins from customers for GEDP, so in summary, Q3 was another great quarter for QNX, in fact an all time record quarter. Moving now to Secure Communications in Q3 we delivered revenue of 67 million beating the top end of guidance and consensus. This was a great achievement by the division as we were faced with US Government shutdown for a portion of the quarter. These strong results were in large part driven by better than expected renewals of UEM and navigation of US Government shutdown As a percentage of revenue for the last 12 months, UEM remains just over half of the secure communications totals with SecuSmart at slightly more than Ad Hoc. For the remainder, key metrics for the division remain solid with annual recurring revenue or ARR increasing 3 million sequentially to 216 million and dollar based net retention rate or DBNRR was at 92%. Secusmart revenue grew sequentially but was lower year over year due to a tough compare as a result of the strong upgrade cycle from the German government in Q3 of the prior fiscal year. Ad Hoc despite having the most exposure of the three product groups to the US Federal Government, shutdown delivered year over year and sequential revenue growth earlier this year we achieved FedRAMP High certification, becoming the only critical events management solution provider to achieve this stringent level of security directly enabling significant U.S. government expansions this quarter including both the U.S. Navy and the Department of Justice, Ad Hoc continues to grow outside of North America as well, securing new wins with with the National University of Malaysia, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and key UK energy infrastructure provider Scottish and Southern Energy for uem in addition to the continued trend for reduced customer churn. We had some significant expansion deals for this product in the quarter. One of these expansion deals included an eight figure multi year renewal with the Dutch Government. Other strong renewals included the Scottish Police Service and the UK Ministry of Defence as well as a number of financial services companies. As we mentioned in Q2, BlackBerry UEM became the first solution to be certified by Germany's Federal Office for Information Security (BSI). And in Q3 we closed our first deal that was enabled by this very demanding security certification. Targeted investment in certifications like BSI for UEM and FedRAMP High for Ad Hoc are strengthening our portfolio's position at the heart of government secure communication strategies. Overall, this was another solid quarter of performance for our secure Communications division. This has been a year of stabilization with improvements in renewal rates and our ability to close new business. Finally, licensing revenue was 6.1 million, which was in line with expectations. And with that, let me now turn the call over to Tim for more color on our financials.

Thank you John and good afternoon everyone. As John mentioned, we continue to drive strong, reliable results across the board that either meet or beat expectations. Revenue for the total company in the quarter topped the high end of the guidance range at $141.8 million. Total company adjusted gross margins remained relatively flat at 78% and increased 3 percentage points sequentially as a result of a favourable revenue mix and continued optimisation of our cost of sales profile. Adjusted operating expenses were 85.4 million, up 7% year over year as we continue to deploy capital to strategically invest for growth in our QNX business. Total company adjusted EBITDA continues to be strong at 20% of revenue or $28.7 million. Adjusted net income for Q3 was 26.8 million and GAAP net income was 13.7 million. This is the third quarter in a row that we've delivered positive GAAP net income and the seventh consecutive quarter of sequential improvement. In fact, Q3 had the strongest level of quarterly GAAP net income at any time since the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2022 almost four years ago. Adjusted EPS for the quarter beat the top end of guidance at positive $0.05. QNX had its best ever quarter of revenue achieving 68.7 million, up 10% year over year and 9% sequentially. QNX gross margins expanded by 1 percentage point sequentially and were down 2 percentage points year over year to 84% in Q3. We did not have the P and L benefit of grant funding from Canada's Strategic Innovation Fund like We did in the first two quarters of the fiscal year. But even without this benefit, adjusted EBITDA was a very solid 24% of revenue and hit the top end of guidance at 16.4 million. Secure Communications revenue exceeded the top end of Guidance for the quarter at $67 million. Gross margin was 1 percentage point lower year over year and higher sequentially at 72% as a result of leverage and revenue mix. The better than expected revenue also drove leverage to the bottom line. Adjusted EBITDA in The quarter was $17.3 million, up 10 percentage points sequentially to a strong 26% margin. Finally, our licensing division delivered results in line with Guidance, a revenue of 6.1 million and adjusted EBITDA of 5.3 million. Adjusted corporate operating costs excluding amortization came in at 10.3 million in Q3 broadly in line with Guidance, this was another good quarter for conversion of profitability into cash. Operating cash flow was 17.9 million, a significant improvement from 3.4 million in Q2 and and up over 200% year over year. Free cash flow was 17 million in the quarter. Our balance sheet remains solid with total cash and investments up $111 million year over year and 14 million sequentially to 377.5 million. We are deploying BlackBerry's capital to drive growth and shareholder value. We continue to invest organically, especially in our QNX business where we're supporting the key initiatives that John outlined earlier to go deeper into auto and wider into target verticals. Notwithstanding this increased investment, we continue to deliver positive operating and free cash flow, further increasing our net cash position. So in addition to organic investment, we're also continuing to take advantage of what we believe to be an undervalued share price and repurchase shares through our buyback program. In Q3 we ordered the repurchase of $5 million or 1.2 million shares at an average price per share of $4.13. A portion of these shares settled just after the quarter end on December 1st, so won't show in this quarter's 10Q filing. All of the shares have been cancelled, bringing the total number of shares bought back this fiscal year to 8.8 million shares. We have therefore more than offset potential dilution from our long term incentive and employee share purchase plans. Turning now to financial outlook for the fourth fiscal quarter and the full fiscal year, we expect revenue for QNX in Q4 to be in the range of 71 to 77 million. Having just delivered an all time record in Q3 for quarterly revenue, we expect to set another new record in Q4 for adjusted EBITDA. We expect QNX to be in the range of 17 to 23 million. We are maintaining our full year revenue guidance at the midpoint while also narrowing the range to 260 to 266 million. For full year adjusted EBITDA, we're raising the bottom end of and the midpoint of our guidance such that the range is now 67 to 73 million. As QNX continues to deliver a combination of double digit growth and strong profit margins for secure Communications, we increasing the expected revenue for Q4 such that it's now in the range of 61 to 65 million and for adjusted EBITDA to be between 11 and 15 million. For the third quarter in a row we are raising our full year revenue guidance for secure Communications such that the high end of the range we provided last quarter is now the low end of the range such it's now between 247 to 251 million. We're also raising our guidance for adjusted EBITDA with it now expected to be between 47 and $51 million. For licensing, we reiterate our prior guidance for revenue to be approximately 6 million and adjusted EBITDA to be approximately 5 million per quarter for the full fiscal year we're holding revenue guidance at approximately 24 million and adjusted EBITDA at approximately 20 million. We continue to expect adjusted corporate OPEX excluding amortization to be approximately $14 million for the full fiscal year. At total company level, we expect revenue for Q4 to be in the range of 138 to 148 million and adjusted EBITDA to be between 22 and 32 million for the full fiscal year 2026, we are raising the guidance midpoint for the total company revenue by $6 million with a range now between 531 and 541 million and raising guidance for adjusted EBITDA at the midpoint by 7.5 million to be in the range of 94 to 104 million. For context when including Cylance, adjusted EBITDA from continuing and discontinued operations for the prior year was 39.3 million. For non GAAP EPS we expect it to be between 3 and 5 cents in the fourth quarter and to now be between 14 and 16 cents for the full fiscal year. Moving on to our cash flow outlook, we expect another sequential increase in operating cash flow for Q4 with it in the range of a solid 40 to 45 million dollars. This increase means that for the Full fiscal year, we're again raising our guidance and expect to generate between 43 and 48 million in operating cash flow. This does not include the additional 38 million of cash from the second tranche of proceeds from the sale of Silence to Arctic Wolf that we expect to receive in Q4, which is classified separately as cash flows from investing activities. Therefore, we expect to generate in excess of 80 million of cash in Q4, further strengthening our already solid balance sheet. With that, let me now turn the call back to John.

Well, thanks for that, Tim. And before we move to Q and A, let me quickly summarize what has been another strong quarter for BlackBerry. We continue to consistently deliver reliable results across the three core metrics of revenue, profitability and cash. At both the company and divisional levels. QNX delivered its best-ever revenue quarter and a solid adjusted EBITDA of 24%, all while continuing to invest for long term growth. In addition to these strong financial results, QNX also hit the milestone of powering 275 million vehicles on the road. Secure Communications exceeded revenue expectations and demonstrated significant leverage in the model with a 26% adjusted EBITDA margin. To put this in perspective, this time last year the cybersecurity division had an ebitda margin of only 9%. Overall, both divisions helped drive another quarter of GAAP profitability and cash generation. So with that, let's now move to Q and A. And Nick, if you could please open up the lines.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please make sure your line is unmuted again, press star one to ask a question. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for questions. We request that you limit yourself to one question and one follow up. And the first question today will come from Kingsley Crane with canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks. And congrats on a really nice quarter. So we've talked about the GEM opportunity, naturally requiring more investment in the near term as you work towards gaining critical mass in key end markets and again, really nice wins in the quarter in that segment. But as you think about fiscal 27. Where do you think you need to invest more within that space? What's working, what needs more help? Thanks.

Yeah, Kings, I think on that one, I think from a product perspective we're in really good shape. I think the GEDP platform that we talked about is a really good leverage point for us to bring value to our customers. So I think you'll probably see us continue to invest in, go to market activities, more feet on the street. It's a broader market partnerships with distributors and other technology providers that maybe can help bring us to market a little bit faster. So these are probably the areas that we'll continue to invest in as we go into the next fiscal year. Great.

And then the follow up would be on this luxury China ev. When were really encouraged by that, what ultimately allowed you to win that deal, do you think it was cost savings, weight savings, superior software functionality? And then, you know, to what extent could this be a blueprint for more success in China? Thanks.

I think it's, honestly, I think it's all of the above. I think it's, it's, it's, it's cost savings, it's weight savings, it's, it's the performance of the product itself. I would say the Chinese market tends to be very price sensitive. So I think the amount of money that they can save leveraging our technology and what that does to their overall BOM is a compelling value proposition. So that probably swayed a little bit more. But the broader value proposition is very, very sound. Pardon the pun, but I think the actual cost savings is probably the, the lead one on that.

And the next question will come from Luke Young with Barrett. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking a question, John. Maybe if we could start just in terms of getting to a vehicle platform award, just if you could talk about some of the gates you're advancing through right now to get you closer to that outcome. And then as we look forward a couple weeks to ces, should we expect to hear more about this at CES as well?

Yeah, yeah. Luke, great question. I'll tell you, it's an area that has got a lot of focus right now inside the company and from a technology perspective, bringing, you know, QNX SDP8 and the middleware, you know, together and the integration, the connective tissue, making that a seamless kind of product that we could bring to our customers. It's a lot of collaboration with our partner, Vector to really bring that. So I think the product itself is really sound. It's just a matter of the integration with our partner and then bringing that to the marketplace. So a lot of good progress that's, that's, that's moving in this regard. But we're, we're, we're pleased with the progress and you'll hear more about it.

Okay. And then wanted to follow up to your answer about the luxury China EV win in terms of the cost sensitivity. I Mean, certainly that's a well known factor in the China market. And I'm just wondering in terms of system design or things that are sort of you can bring to the table from a QNX standpoint to put BoM into a more compelling position like just what are some of the key areas that you can enable for a Chinese OEM in that respect? John, thank you.

Yeah, I think certainly, you know, the cost savings and the time to market capabilities are something that's compelling. But one thing we do think is going to start getting more traction in the Chinese market is safety solutions. I think in the past they've kind of used some basic technologies and because they've had some high profile safety issues, we're excited about the opportunities that could be there for us for SDP8 and bringing kind of the core RTOs, you know, to the. So it's great. Sometimes you get in with maybe, you know, sound or cabin or different things like that and, and maybe, you know, drag along kind of the core product in some ways. But you know, it's, I think it's a testament to the broad portfolio of the, of the platform. You might lead with sound and get your foot in the door and then bring, you know, the rtos along. More times than not, it's the other way around. You know, it's because that's the, the meat and potatoes from the operating system level. So, you know, we're working every single angle in the, in the Chinese market, but I think they are a little more acutely aware and concerned with the need for having an SDV platform that has safety certifications, probably more so than they have been in the past.

The next question will come from Todd Copeland with cibc. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks. Good evening everyone. I wanted to start with QNX 15% growth last quarter, 10% this quarter guidance implies 15% growth. How should we think about the trend in this business given that fluctuating growth rate as we're thinking about fiscal 2027? Thanks a lot.

Yeah, great question, Todd. So ultimately we'll give the guide for fiscal 27 at the end of Q4. So in 90 days time, hey look, double digit growth has been very solid and ultimately we're going to be giving the backlog number as well in Q4, which will be a good lead, lead indicator of where we're moving on the backlog. We're actually feeling pretty good as John mentioned in his prepared remarks that after a difficult start, we've actually accelerated pretty well and we've got some really good momentum now. As we head into Q4 and conversion of that backlog into revenue, which will start in FY27, is going to really drive that business forward. And what we saw in Q3 was strong royalties and royalties driven by some of these new programs that we've been winning over the last couple of years now starting to come online. So yeah, it's an exciting time. And some of the growth accelerators, such as going up the stack, things like sound and cabin that we've mentioned, we're starting to see traction from those too. So I'm going to put a pin in it and say come back in 90 days and we'll give you more information on next year. But we feel very positive about the momentum that we've got in this business.

Great, thanks. Thanks, Tim. And then just on securecom, you know, the business is trending, you know, probably about half of the decline rates you've been projecting the last couple quarters. Is this the new normal? And again, similar type of mindset as we think about fiscal 27. Could this business actually turn into a growth segment with 10 defense spending trending positive and the other segments doing better? So just talk about how we should think about that. Thanks.

Great question, Todd. That's a really good question. We're actually right now, as you would imagine, just modeling out next year, taking a look at the pipeline and things do tend to be a little lumpy sometimes in this space. So, you know, I don't think one quarter necessarily translates into but I will say we have a really strong pipeline within secure comps, one of the stronger pipelines that we've had in a long time. So that bodes well for it's probably like Tim said before, it's next quarter. We'll give guidance for the next fiscal year. But it was a solid quarter. Be honest with you. We were happy we navigated the US Government shutdown the way that we did. We were a little spooked by that as the quarter was going on, but. But I think that turned out to be a pretty good result for us in the end. And now it's just a matter of converting the pipeline that we got in front of us to tee up a really solid fiscal year 27. So we'll come back to you with, with more insights into that, but certainly pleased with the way that business has performed. Great. Thanks for the color.

The next question will come from Trip Chowdhury with Global Equities Research. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Congratulations on a very solid execution. I have two quick questions. The first regarding the government shutdown do you think now everything is normal or you think like almost more than half of the quarter was in shutdown? Do you think the remaining half made up of the first half? That's first question, second question. Very refreshing to hear your wins in the robotic space. I was wondering if you can put some more color about what kind of robots may be using your technology and any color on the demand side also. That's all for me.

Thanks Trip. I'll cover a little bit on government and we'll cover a little bit on robotics. Trip. Just give you some color on it. But as far as government's concerned, it's been a really interesting year. We started the year with Liberation Day and the uncertainty that that brought that in some ways created some opportunities and also created some headwinds. We also had in the government space the, you know, continuing resolutions at one point, then a full on shutdown at one point. But I think the good thing, I think what we learned from this experience, member DOGE was another one. How much how was that going to impact our business? But one of the learnings that I think we took away from the last six or nine months on the secure comm side is what we do in terms of mission critical critical events management, mission critical SECU suite, encrypted voice data and video, mission critical UEM and the security that that provides these mission critical. When it comes time to take a look at what they're going to cut, we found they're a little bit hesitant to really take a hatchet to mission critical types of software solutions. So we were a little concerned about the timing in Q3 with the US federal government in particular because everything shut down. Their procurement then had a backlog of contracts that they had to process. But I think we were fortunate enough to kind of work through that where it really didn't impact the quarter as much as we initially thought it was going to be. So there's a lot of different dynamics with the governments. But I have to say I think we've been successfully navigating a lot of the, the waves there in some of the changes that's gone on. We'll come back to you, Tripp, with more details on robotics and medical instrumentation and industrial automation and give you more colors on the wins. Sometimes we're a little bit. Some of our customers are a little hesitant to share too much information about the use case and the design win for confidentiality and different reasons. But you know, in the robotics space, when we think of humanoids robotics, we think of, you know, the more Technology that's going into this vertical, there's more compute power, there's more performance that's required, and that's a sweet spot for qnx. So regardless of the type of robotics, if you need high compute and you need high performance, SDP8 is the solution for them to look at. So we'll bring that a little bit more to life. I think in the future. Actually, we'll have some demos at the booth where we at CES this year to show it a little bit more, but hopefully that gives you a little bit more color on robotics and we'll be sure to share some more in the future.

Yes, that's perfect. Thank you so much and happy holidays.

Thanks, Trip. Thanks, Trip.

The next question will come from Pral Traber with RBC Capital Markets. Please, please go ahead.

Thanks for taking the questions and good afternoon. You made an interesting comment on the pricing opportunity for the vehicle software platform. Can you just speak to what you see as a potential ROI or the cost savings that the automakers would benefit from that? And then also could you speak to the economic, the split between QNX and Vector, or maybe your ability to capture a disproportionate share of the pricing there?

Sure. Hey, Paul. So ultimately, what we're providing here, and remember this, this has been a pull from. The OEMs have come to us and asked if we can help in this area, because I think if we look back over the last couple of years, the OEMs have been very ambitious in terms of trying to write all the code from the OS up to the application layer and really found that to be quite a challenge. So in terms of cost savings, having us do it much more efficiently and actually being able to produce a product that they can get into market is a big advantage for them. We're taking off their hands, off their plate, a load of software integration that currently they have a heck of a lot of internal resource working on, so they can divert that resource to the application layer, which is where they're really going to differentiate their brand from, from other players. So, yeah, we're doing a lot of heavy lifting for them. And like I say, this is, this is a poll. They've come to us and said, can you do this for us in terms of the economics? And we're not going to give like the absolute details here, but clearly a portion of of the pie is coming from Vector. A significant portion, I should add, is coming from us. And there will be a split. Now we are going to be the billing entities that will take the revenue and the vector portion would obviously be passed on through cost of sales.

And second question is on the Canadian federal government. The budget was out in November and there's a number of new investment initiatives. Can you just remind us again of the size of your secured comms business for the Canadian government? And then what do you see as the opportunity and what's the strategy to try to expand further with the Canadian government?

Yeah, yeah, great question, Paul. That's a lot, a lot of actually great momentum that we have right now with the Canadian government, especially their, you know, by Canada kind of solution looking to do more with Canadian providers. We do have a comprehensive relationship with them today around uem. They, they use that widely throughout the organization and we're having really good productive discussions with them about SecuSmart and ad hoc and other parts of the portfolio as well. So stay tuned. We've got a lot of activity going on. We've got a multi year agreement with them today that's very UEM centric. And as we look to try to expand into SecuSmart, SecuSuite product and the Ad hoc portfolio, we're finding, you know, some really good discussions with them right now, particularly as they ramp up their spending on defense. So critical events management is, you know, something that is widely deployed in the entire U.S. government. We're hoping we could bring that same value proposition to the Canadian government as they ramp up their defense defence spending over the next few years. So we'll keep you posted on it, but be rest assured there's a lot of lot of activity going on right now with the Canadian government.

This will conclude our question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to John Giamatteo, CEO of BlackBerry for closing remarks.

Terrific. Thanks, Nick. Before we end the call, I just wanted to flag that that will be starting off the new year at CES in Las Vegas. We'll be hosting an Investor briefing on January 7th at 11:00am Pacific Time to discuss some of the highlights from the show. You can access the live webcast in the Investor information section@BlackBerry.com and if you're at the event, please stop by to see some of the exciting new exhibits that that our QNX team will have on show. So thanks everyone for joining the call today and I'd like to wish all of you a happy and safe holiday season. See you next time.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.