BlackBerry’s Licensing line went from $6.6 million to $22.1 million in the six months ended August 31. That is the most eye-catching detail in a filing otherwise full of broad improvement.

Revenue rose 26% to $163.3 million, gross margin reached 77.8%, and operating income nearly tripled to $33.6 million. Operating cash flow also swung from negative $14.1 million to positive $33.9 million. On the surface, BlackBerry’s operating margin has risen sharply.

The segment table makes the improvement less uniform. QNX revenue rose 27.3% to $80.3 million, while Secure Communications edged up only 1.7% to $60.9 million. Licensing supplied the largest percentage increase, but it remains the smallest of the three reported lines.

BlackBerry links the margin expansion to the parts of the business that added revenue without much matching cost.

"The increase was primarily due to an increase in revenue from QNX and Licensing due to the reasons discussed above in “Revenue by Segment”, as the cost of sales for most software and services products and for intellectual property licensing arrangements does not significantly fluctuate based on business volume."

10-Q 2026-09-24

That is the operating math in plain English: more QNX and Licensing revenue flowed through at high margins. Gross profit rose 31.6%, faster than sales, while operating expenses also increased.

Research and development rose 29.7% to $33.2 million over the six months. Management attributed a second-quarter increase in research and development expenses to the absence of prior-year SIF claim benefits, higher salaries and benefits, and higher variable incentive costs.

"Research and development expenses increased by $7.6 million, or 29.7%, in the second quarter of fiscal 2027 compared to the second quarter of fiscal 2026 primarily due to the absence of $3.8 million of SIF claim benefits recognized in the prior-year period, an increase of $1.7 million in salaries and benefits costs and an increase of $1.5 million in variable incentive plan costs."

10-Q 2026-09-24

The company is spending more on development as revenue grows, but the filing does not break out how much of that investment belongs to QNX, Licensing, or Secure Communications. That leaves the durability of the margin improvement tied partly to the segment mix.

The balance sheet adds another layer. Cash fell 3.7% to $266.2 million even as operating cash flow turned positive, while diluted shares rose 8.8% to 649.7 million. Accounts receivable increased 12.8%, and capex rose 141.2%, although capex remained only 1.3% of revenue. The filing reports those movements without assigning a single cause to the cash decline.

BlackBerry’s annual results provide some context without resolving the question. Fiscal 2026 revenue was $549.1 million, up just 2.7%, with an 8.8% operating margin. The latest six-month figures are running at a faster pace, but the revenue increase is not spread evenly across the segments.

At the latest close, the stock was $8.39 after a 2.7% daily decline, with a market capitalization of $5.0 billion and a 94.3 times price-to-earnings ratio based on the latest annual figures. That valuation puts more attention on whether the current mix persists than on whether this filing contains improvement. The next reported period’s Licensing revenue, compared with the latest six-month $22.1 million, is the cleanest number for tracking that mix.

Source: BlackBerry 10-Q filed September 24, 2026, for the six months ended August 31, 2026.