RIM blames “lower than expected demand” as a reason for poor quarterly results

September 15, 2011 By Mike Dunn

RIM's quarterly earnings barely make projections due to lower than expected interest, RIM shipped fewer phones and Playbooks than expected.

There hasn’t been much good news to report about Research in Motion lately, and sadly that trend continues. RIM announced last quarter’s earnings, and they are at the bottom end of the projected range. The good news is that revenue for the quarter was $4.2 billion, with net income of $329 million. Jim Balsillie, co-CEO, said, “Overall unit shipments in the quarter were slightly below our forecast due to lower than expected demand for older models.”

Despite the fact that RIM only shipped 200,000 Playbooks, and a lack luster 10.6 million phones there is still hope. With the release of the most recent batch of phones running BlackBerry 7 there is a new found excitement around the company. “We successfully launched a range of BlackBerry 7 smartphones around the world during the latter part of the second quarter and are seeing strong sell-through and customer interest for these new products” Balsillie said. RIM is expecting revenue to be up to 5.3 to 5.6 billion for the current quarter, which ends in November.

RIM’s cash reserves were also chopped in half from $2.9 billion just a quarter ago to $1.4 billion. Around half of that money went into buying patents from Nortel, roughly 780 million. It still isn’t clear what RIM is planning to do with the new patents, just protect itself or go on the offensive.

Even though RIM is still profitable, and there seems to be hope on the horizon there are rough times ahead for the Canadian company. Some shareholders wrote an open letter to RIM calling for the company to try and sell itself before it lost any more value.

With Playbook sales so low, do you think RIM will take notes from HP and slash the price in hopes of a fire sale?

Showing 10 comments

Kevin McArthur at 8:52am 16th September 2011 I went from Blackberry to Sony Ericsson Android and have never looked back. RIP Blackberry!!!!
Bristol Eastwood at 3:26am 16th September 2011 Everybody needs to throw their old phone in the trash and buy a new one now! You must because it is advertised to you! Buy new! Consume! Obey the advertising!
Jacob Troyer at 2:21am 16th September 2011 I've had a Blackberry Storm for two years and though it has many annoying bugs, I love it.
Lorne Hammond at 1:37am 16th September 2011 Just keel over and die already RIM, quit gasping and just die already.
Brian Moloney at 11:59pm 15th September 2011 Die RIM, die.
Jose Varas at 11:56pm 15th September 2011 build something woth a demand
Joe Garcia at 11:45pm 15th September 2011 LOL, is this an article from the Onion?
Marty Murray at 11:43pm 15th September 2011 All of America is experiencing "lower than {THE COMPANY IN QUESTION} expected demand."
Ted Bradford II at 11:41pm 15th September 2011 "new products"... sorry.
Ted Bradford II at 11:41pm 15th September 2011 There is a reason why IT folks have been screaming for years about RIM falling behind. They didn't listen. Consumers globally complained. They didn't listen. Two top dogs with RIM have left within the past 70 days. RIM is dying with nre products, a substandard OS and an ambivilance to anything rooted in reality it would seem.