The troubled smartphone company BlackBerry is still losing money, but has gradually slowed down.

BlackBerry has reported a $5.9 billion net loss on its latest financial year. Although the first quarter of this year, the smartphone maker had a much smaller loss than what was anticipated, $423 million loss was recorded, compared with the $4.4 billion loss from the previous quarter.

The company believes that they are on the right track for higher profits and growth. BlackBerry is satisfied with the performance of their fourth quarter. Boss John Chen said the firm was moving to a "sounder financial footing".

BlackBerry has made it clear that competing against the Apple iPhone and Goggle Android will not be the main priority of the company. The company has lost a lot of market shares from other smartphone makers. It has decided to turn its focus on services and software that can run on other phones created by their competitors.

The firm is expected to find ways to reduce its decline,by reducing expenses in order to improved their gross margin. BlackBerry still needs to reverse its decreasing sales. There are some analysis that the company can control its expenditures to a lower rate, but higher revenue is still the key for its growth. A significant drop in sales has been recorder over the past year, and also much lower compared to the year prior to that.

"I'm impressed with the operational improvements, but I'm skeptical about the idea that they're going to grow revenues," Genovese said. It will take "about a year" to judge whether the turnaround effort has been successful, he added.

BlackBerry release a new phone just last month,the Q20 smartphone. This device combines a touchscreen and keyboard, with similar features from its older selections, like menu buttons and a trackpad. The company is beginning productions on their older BlackBerry Bold phones.