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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 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 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]
About The Author
Simon Sage
Simon Sage’s education largely surrounded writing, technology and online community, leading him to begin his blogging career at www.BlackBerryCool.com and to quickly discover a vibrant and active community surrounding BlackBerry and mobile technology. In exploring RIM’s platform, he has learned what enterprises are looking for in mobility as well as what makes the innocuous BlackBerry so appealing to them. Recently Simon’s been covering RIM’s gradual move into an already-crowded consumer market, and the impact of burgeoning challengers, such as the iPhone, as well as long-time leaders, like Nokia, on BlackBerry’s advancement. With plenty of content under his belt, Simon will be branching off a bit to see what other smartphone manufacturers are working on while still using BlackBerry as a barometer. At IntoMobile, you can count on his posts being even-handed, well-informed and thought-out.
