Canadian company Research in Motion (RIM), manufacturer of BlackBerry phones, recorded losses of $235 million, or 45 cents per share, in the third quarter of 2012, compared to a profit of $419 million or 80 cents per share , in the same period, a year ago. RIM revenues reached $ 2.9 billion. Analysts were expecting a loss of 47 cents per share, on revenue of $2.49 billion.
Research in Motion has sold between July and September of 2012 about 7.4 million BlackBerry smartphones, down from 10.6 million units sold in the same period of 2011. Some analysts were expecting sales of just 6.4 million phones, while the company is preparing to launch the long delayed new models of BlackBerry, the success of which depends the survival of the company.
Thorsten Heins, the current chief executive officer of Research in Motion, said that BlackBerry 10 is on schedule to be launched in the first quarter of 2013, seven months after its rival, Apple, came up with iPhone 5. RIM head acknowledged that competitors (Apple Inc. and Samsung) have solid products on the market but said that the new BlackBerry 10 “will bring the operating system to a whole new level.”
Thorsten Heins surprised analysts when announced that the number of subscribers for RIM smartphones reached 80 million, from 78 million in July. In last year’s third quarter, the market share of RIM on the smartphone segment fell to 11% from 15% in the third quarter of 2010. This happened mainly after Blackberry customers switched iPhone and mobile phones using Android operating system, such as phones manufactured by Samsung, HTC, LG, Sony and Motorola. Android OS, released by Google as open source (Apache License), was initially developed by Android Inc. which was purchased by Google in 2005.
RIM (NASDAQ:RIMM) shares rose Friday 5%, reaching $7.50, due to better than expected Blackberry sales in the third quarter. Stock analysts upgraded RIM stock to “outperform”, and increased the price target of the stock to $12.
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