BlackBerry Sales Soar

RIM, the company that makes the BlackBerry, reports increased profits and a rise in sales of the handset, with a total of 16 million subscribers.

RIM, the makers of the BlackBerry smartphone, has announced a massive increase in revenue for the fist fiscal quarter of 2009. At $2.24 billon, it was up from $1.08 billion from the same quarter last year, ZDNet reports.

During the quarter the company shipped 5.4 million handsets, a healthy increase from the four million of the previous quarter. BlackBerry added 2.3 million subscribers in the first quarter of this year, bringing their total up to 16 million.

RIM co-chief executive Jim Balsillie said:

"As we prepare this summer to ship our 40 millionth BlackBerry smartphone, we continue to steadily scale our business and partnerships to support the opportunities ahead in this thriving sector."