TORONTO (REUTERS) - BlackBerry posted another loss and a surprisingly sharp fall in revenue on Tuesday as the software growth it is relying on failed to make up for shrinking handset sales and lost service fees.

The Canadian smartphone pioneer has gone through a wrenching transition in recent years featuring huge writedowns and job cuts as it seeks to build up a software business not tied directly to its eponymous smartphones, which have fallen from market dominance to also-ran in the iPhone and Android era.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company said it had a net loss of US$117 million (S$169.2 million), or 22 US cents a share, on revenue of US$289 million in its fiscal third quarter. A year ago, it reported a net loss of US$89 million, or 17 US cents a share, on revenue of US$548 million.

Adjusted earnings of two cents a share came in ahead of analysts' expectations for a 1 cent a share loss, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Analysts had expected revenue of US$331.9 million.

The company said it had software and services revenue of US$160 million, while sales from its handset business dropped to US$62 million from US$220 million a year earlier.

The company said it expects to achieve an adjusted profit for this fiscal year, up from a prior outlook of breakeven to a five cent loss.

The company's Nasdaq-listed shares rose 2.7 per cent to US$7.92 in premarket trading.