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After a glum second quarter, and a ho-hum third quarter, RIM is back on the ass-kick train, boasting significant gains in the fourth quarter, which ended February 28th.
Revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 was $3.46 billion, up 24.5% from $2.78 billion in the previous quarter and up 84% from $1.88 billion in the same quarter of last year. The revenue breakdown for the quarter was approximately 83% for devices, 12% for service, 2% for software and 3% for other revenue. Revenue for the fiscal year ended February 28, 2009 was $11.07 billion, up 84% from $6.01 billion last year. RIM shipped approximately 7.8 million devices in the fourth quarter and approximately 26 million devices during fiscal 2009.
An extra 3.9 million BlackBerry users puts the grand total of subscribers at 25 million, and total devices over 50 million. As for the year overall, the BlackBerry-maker has a net income of $1.89 billion, while they’re looking at making $3.3 – $3.5 billion in the near future of Q1 ’09. How are investors reacting? Well, shares jumped 20% in after hours trading as a result of the call, and the RIMM stock currently sits at $63.00. Here are but a few analyst opinions on the results…
“We maintain our buy rating as the company continues to outperform all our benchmark parameters, in particular operating cash generation.” – Zacks Investment
“We believe RIM’s current replacement rate of 69 per cent for full-year 2009 – implying users replace their BlackBerrys every 1.5 years – is unsustainably high in the current environment.” – JP Morgan Chase
“With only 1.9% global handset share (98% remaining), a large opportunity remains ahead; this quarter’s results and outlook in our view affirms RIM’s solid fundamentals and competitive advantages as a dominant Smartphone platform — including high data efficiency and global carrier leverage — which we expect will boost RIM’s global share gains vs. incumbent handset vendors.” – RBC Capital Markets
“They issued a strong report. The guidance is well above expectations.” – Avian Securities
I wonder what could account for the sudden jump? Verizon has been happy with Storm sales, so that doubtlessly helped, and as soon as the 8900 comes to AT&T, we can expect an even bigger jump. If you want to take a listen in on the investor call yourself, RIM has kindly had it archived for your pleasure.
[via RIM]
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.
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kachra
