RIM Q2 results up 88% from last year, but forecast gloomy

RIM announced their quarterly results last night, and while pretty good on the whole ($2.58 billion revenue, up 15% from last quarter, 88% from last year), but their outlook for for next quarter sent the stock market in a selling frenzy. Overnight trading is seeing the stock price drop from $97.53 to around $77.80 over fears that increasing operating costs (now accounting for roughly 20% of revenue) is taking too big of a bite out of earnings.

Last quarter could have been a lot better for RIM, but the sad fact is they still haven’t launched the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Bold in the US, their biggest market, and there was a lot of pricey product development happening during that time (Pearl 8220, Storm 9500, Javelin 8900 and ongoing Bold fixes). If rumours of an early October Bold launch on AT&T (NYSE: T) pan out and the BlackBerry Pearl 8220 makes a big splash, you’d think Q3 was looking good, but RIM’s costs are slated to increase, making things all the trickier. Personally, I remember seeing RIM’s stock at $140 this summer and wish I had bought after their 3-to-1 stock split the summer before when the price was down around $70-$80. If you’re telling me all of their upcoming handsets won’t more than make up for operating costs by the end of the year, well… that’s just crazy-talk.

[via RIM, MarketWatch]