Canadian smartphone maker, BlackBerry has recorded a record third-quarter net loss of $4.4 billion, or $8.37 a share.

The company had recorded a net income of $9 million or two cents a share. The company said that excluding the inventory write downs and impairment charges, the total loss was at $354 million or 67 cents a share. Total revenues of the firm fell to $1.19 billion from $2.73 billion as its sales fell further in the global smartphone market.

BlackBerry sold about 4.3m handsets in the third quarter till 30 November, 2013 and the figures included some of handsets shipped suppliers earlier. The older version of its smartphone, BlackBerry 7 models account for about 3.2m of the smartphones.

John Chen, who joined the company as chief executive in the previous month said, "While our enterprise services, messaging and QNX embedded businesses are already well-positioned ... the most immediate challenge for the company is how to transition the devices operations to a more profitable business model."

Meanwhile, the company has entered into a five-year partnership with Foxconn Technology Company Limited to develop and manufacture a handset for emerging markets.