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RIM Breaks Sales Records Again

Waterloo, Ontario – Research In
Motion (RIM) posted its sixth consecutive quarter of record-breaking smartphone
shipments in the third quarter even though it continued to lose smartphone
market share.

Dollar sales and profits rose at
double-digit rates.

For the three months ending Nov.
27, unit sales of Black Berry phones grew 40 percent to 14.2 million compared
with the year-ago period, outselling iPhones during Apple’s third quarter
ending October, co-CEO Jim Balsillie said in a conference call.

Dollar volume rose 40 percent to
$5.49 billion for the quarter and 32 percent for the nine-month period to $14.4
billion.

The company boosted third-quarter
net income by 45 percent in the third quarter to $911.1 million, with
nine-month net rising 42 percent to $2.48 billion. Operating income in the
quarter rose by 42 percent to $1.26 billion and for the nine-month period by 53
percent to $3.4 billion.

Smartphone sales accounted for 82
percent of the company’s third-quarter revenues, with 15 percent coming from
service and 3 percent from software and other sources.

Much of the company’s growth came
outside North America. More than 48 percent of RIM’s subscribers was outside
North America, Balsillie said, and although net adds in North America were
“OK,” the company is positioned “to grow very strongly,” he said. The company
will launch “a lot” of new products in the first and second quarters, including
the Playbook tablet early in 2011, he said. The first version will be Wi-Fi
only and enterprise-ready, and a follow-up version will add cellular data.

He promised the tablet’s dual-core
processor, HTML5 capability and Flash compatibility will deliver an
“uncompromised web experience.

He also said carriers are testing
“dual-persona” software for BlackBerry phones, which will enable enterprises to
protect and remotely wipe corporate data without touching an employee’s
personal data. That capability will be expanded to the Playbook.

The company also announced that
co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis were named co-chairmen of the board.

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