Gloomy forecast, job cuts, product delays at RIM
Apple v BlackBerry fruit-fight going poorly
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Research In Motion (RIM) has issued a profit warning, plans to cut the workforce and delay product launches amid fierce competition from smartphone rivals.
The BlackBerry and PlayBook maker grew 2012 fiscal first quarter revenues 16 per cent year-on-year to $4.9bn (£3bn) as profits slid nine per cent to $695m. But on a sequential basis the situation was markedly worse; sales fell 12 per cent and profits dived more than 25 per cent.
"Fiscal 2012 has gotten off to a challenging start," said RIM chief executive Jim Balsillie.
"The slowdown we saw in the first quarter is continuing into Q2, and delays in new product introductions into the very late part of August is leading to lower than expected outlook."
Launches of the latest generation Bold device has been put on hold as have the upgraded Torch touchscreen mobile and touch handheld Storm, leading the vendor to slash Q2 shipment forecasts of 11 million to 12.5 million, down from the 14 million expected by market watchers.
It also downgraded earnings per share for the quarter from previous estimates of $1.40 to $0.75 cents to $1.05.
Starting in the current quarter, RIM said it was intending to make redundancies and move heads to the fastest growing areas of the business, it expected to realise the impact of cost cutting from Q3.
RIM sales have suffered at the hands of Apple's iPhone and a growing band of smartphone vendors basing their devices on Google's Android.
Richard Holway, Chairman at industry analyst TechMarketView, said in a post this morning that BlackBerry is "very good at email… the problem is that it is 'only' good at email" and was way off the pace in all other aspects, particularly web surfing and Apps. ®
COMMENTS
No - different reasons actually
RIM haven't lost marketshare at all if you look at total handsets, they've lost share only in the smartphone segment and that has happened because of the conversion of consumers over to smartphones at an accelerating rate. RIMs core enterprise customer base has remained loyal through all this.
Nokia has lost share in both handsets and smartphones, they're in freefall, having gone from making five times RIMs profits to making less than RIM.
RIMs problem is that they can't seem to grow out of their enterprise niche and that eventually either Apple or WP7 or Android will manage to break in. Nokia's problem is that they don't currently have any niche at all - their market share is a mile wide and an inch-deep, with no customer loyalty at all.
the advantage is secure email.
When you email somebody else in your company your email is only stored on servers that your company owns and operates. This is a HUGE deal for enterprises and as yet nobody else is offering it with a push email solution.
Oh dear
I thought they had a winner in the Playbook, and then it can't do email? What on earth were they thinking.
And further more, BB might be great and the best email device if you have your own BES server, but if you don't you are stuffed. If you don't it is the worst email device ever. Two way sync over IMAP anyone? Come on BB get with it, any device on the consumer market is better at email than you are.
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