Canadian manufacturer of smartphones BlackBerry, Research in Motion announced yesterday the postponement of the date of official announcement of the company’s critical for new mobile devices for the second half of 2012. CEO of RIM – Mike Lazaridis said that the planned 10 new phone to get new integrated chipsets, which will start production until the middle of next year, and thus devices based on them, will appear not earlier than autumn 2012. This was reported by Lazaridis himself a meeting with analysts. Experts discuss the future of RIM now depends on the new operating system. BlackBerry platform until recently was considered relatively successful, but because of slow update cycle of more users have begun to abandon it and switch to competing solutions such as iPhone and smartphones based on Android. Following the announcement of the postponement of the launch of the smartphone market price RIM shares fell more than 7%. Analysts commented that the company postponed the date of placing of about 10 new smartphones at a time when RIM and without losing market share, and if you add to this the fact that the tablet and the company is not selling very well, the situation for Research in Motion is quite deplorable. Optimism for consumers is further weakened by a series of recent failures in the platform BlackBerry, then millions of users worldwide have proved partially or totally deprived of service for several days. The company recently fired two of its managers, who organized drunken row aboard the aircraft of Air Canada, which in turn became the subject of extensive discussion and a mockery address RIM. Furthermore, the Government of Indonesia is preparing to launch an investigation against the company because of unrest during the organized shops BlackBerry promotion in the country.
Today RIM announced that net profit for the reporting quarter fell by 71% after the manufacturer has withdrawn from its balance sheet large number of unsold tablets PlayBook. “We ask you to manifest a little patience,” said Lazaridis. In the reporting quarter profit RIM amounted to 265 million dollars, or 51 cents a share, compared with 911 million, or $ 1.74 per share a year earlier. Sales of Research in Motion fell by 6% to 5.2 billion dollars. Profit before tax of the company was 485 million dollars. Over the past quarter RIM sold 14.1 million BlackBerry smartphones, as well as 150,000 PlayBook tablet. In the current quarter, which began in late November, the company expects to sell 11-12 million smartphones. In the fourth quarter, the manufacturer expects earnings at 80-95 cents on revenue of 4.6 to 4.9 billion dollars. Analysts predict profit of 1.15 dollars per share and total revenue of 5.04 billion dollars.