RIM posts narrower than expected Q2 loss despite stalled BlackBerry sales
Research In Motion (RIMM) is trapped in a holding pattern as it rushes to launch its next-generation BlackBerry 10 platform. The first smartphones powered by RIM’s new software won’t launch until the first quarter next year at the earliest, however, and the Canadian vendor’s current lineup is getting stale in the meantime. Recent reports suggested that some U.S. carrier stores haven’t sold a single BlackBerry handset in more than a month, and although company CEO Thorsten Heins put concerns surrounding potential subscriber declines to rest earlier this week when he announced RIM added two million net subscribers in the second fiscal quarter to reach 80 million total global users, the vendor still reported its third consecutive net quarterly loss on Thursday.
Analysts were expecting RIM to post a net loss of $0.47 per share for the second fiscal quarter of 2013, and the Street’s revenue consensus came in at $2.5 billion. The numbers are now in, and RIM confirmed that it lost $0.27 per share, or $235 million, on revenue of $2.9 billion, beating Wall Street’s expectations on both counts. RIM reported a loss of $0.37 per share on revenue of $2.8 billion in sales for the first fiscal quarter this year, and it managed a profit of $0.80 per share on $4.7 billion in revenue in the year-ago quarter.
RIM’s stock was up more than 16% in after-hours trading on the surprise earnings beat.
Analysts were looking for BlackBerry smartphone shipments to come in at 7.8 million units for the second quarter and RIM announced that it shipped only 7.4 million smartphones last quarter. Shipments of PlayBook tablets fell to 130,000 units in the second fiscal quarter compared to 260,000 units in the first quarter.
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