Research In Motion announced the results of its fiscal 2011 first
quarter, during which it shipped its 100 millionth BlackBerry
smartphone.
Revenue for the quarter was $4.24 billion, up from $4.08 billion the quarter before
and up 24 percent from the same quarter a year ago. Net income for the
quarter was $769.9 million — up from $643 million a year ago.
RIM added 4.9 million net new subscriber accounts
during the quarter, bringing its total to 46 million, and grew
shipments of BlackBerry handsets by more than 43 percent over the first
quarter of 2010.
“RIM achieved significant earnings growth and
shipped a record 11.2 million devices during the first quarter,” said
Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of RIM, in a statement. “We continue to be
focused on growing our business globally and we believe that the range
of exciting new BlackBerry products being released in the coming months
will create significant opportunities to accelerate RIM’s growth in the
second half of the fiscal year.”
Whether those “exciting new BlackBerry products” include a tablet device — as
the Wall Street Journal earlier this month reported that RIM is working
on, along with a touchscreen-based smartphone with a slideout keypad — Balsillie wouldn’t comment on during a June 24 call with media and analysts.
Balsillie did say, however, that RIM has “two
significant product additions” coming out later in the year that will
significantly affect either its second- or third-quarter
earnings.
One analyst on the call noted that AT&T was
strongly aligned with RIM-competitor Apple, and Sprint seemed to be
aligning with Android. The analyst asked, “so where does that leave
RIM? What will motivate customers to buy a BlackBerry 6 product instead
of, say, the new iPhone 4 or an Android product?” Balsillie grew
defensive, saying the caller should be careful about his implicit and
explicit assumptions, and that everyone would “just have to watch and
see what the plans are.”
When later asked about RIM’s media strategy, Balsillie again pointed to the near future.
“Once you see the new app world we talked about,
and once you see the new platforms. You’ll be all very surprised …
You’ll just be really surprised by it, and I think you’ll just be
amazed by how it’s a quantum leap over anything that’s out there,”
Balsillie insisted.
“I don’t think you’ll have to wait too, too long
to see powerful and tangible manifestations of this,” Balsillie said.
“I think the media-consumption side of this in different form factors,
in very tangible commercial and technical ways, is poised for
redefinition here. And I think there’s some credibility, because we’ve
played redefining roles in mobile computing in the past.”
Discovery of just what those new form factors are
will have to wait until RIM is ready to talk about them — which,
again, shouldn’t be too long.
“I just wish I could wind the clock forward a few
weeks,” Balsillie continued. “You’ll say, ‘I get it now.’ When you see
the pieces come together you’ll say, ‘Now I see what they were doing.’
And it is really powerful.”
RIM’s estimated revenue for its fiscal 2011 second
quarter, which ends Aug. 28, is in the range of $4.4 billion to $4.6
billion. New subscriber additions are expected to be between 4.9
million and 5.2. million subscribers.
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