Smartphone maker BlackBerry Limited reported a much smaller-than-expected quarterly loss yesterday, despite its revenue and smartphone sales continuing to slide.

The company, whose devices have lost ground to Apple's iPhone and smartphones powered by Google's Android operating system, has been cutting costs as it pushes for a turnaround.

Research and development expenses fell 24 per cent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, while administration costs dropped 35 per cent.

Its net loss was $423 million, or 80 cents a share, for the fourth quarter ended March 1. That compared with a year-earlier profit of $98 million, or 19 cents a share.

Revenue fell to $976 million from $2.68 billion. Analysts on average had been expecting $1.11 billion.

Excluding restructuring charges and other one-time items, the company reported a loss of eight cents a share. The analysts' average estimate was a loss of 55 cents.

Morningstar analyst Brian Colello said operating expense reductions were encouraging, to a point. "The big question still remains what BlackBerry can do on the demand side," he said.

"A lot of their moves have been supply related and internal, but we're still looking for strong signs that demand is improving."

Under the leadership of new chief executive John Chen, the Canadian tech company is focusing on its services arm, which manages mobile devices on the internal networks of big clients.-Reuters