RSSBlackBerry looking mighty tasty as RIM reports record Q4 earnings
By Angela Gunn | Published April 2, 2009, 6:30 PM
iPhone who?, Research in Motion's Q4 2009 earnings report seemed to say on Thursday, as the Canadian firm's forth-quarter earnings report showed that the time is now for sales of its BlackBerry smartphones. The 50 millionth BlackBerry handset, in fact, shipped during the 2009 fiscal year just ended.
Not just to the usual business suspects, either. Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said on Thursday's earnings call that 70% of the 3.9 million new BlackBerry subscriber accounts launched in Q4 were non-enterprise accounts, and that 50% of all accounts now are held by consumers. In turn, he said, the company is changing to offer the sort of things consumers find appealing: social networking, e-commerce, music and the like.
RIM reported revenue of $3.46 billion (up 84% year-over-year) and net income of $518.3 million during the quarter ending February 28, working out to 90 cents per share. That blows past analysts' expectations of 84 cents/share and revenues of $3.42 billion, and represents a 26% year-over-year gain.
For fiscal year 2009, the company took in $11.1 billion in revenue, garnering $1.9 billion in net income, up from $6.0 billion and $1.3 billion respectively. Per-share earnings for FY 2009 were $3.30.
RIM shipped around 7.8 million devices in Q4 and around 26 million during fiscal year 2009. 88% of RIM's revenues are from handset sales, with software (2%), services (12%) and miscellany (3%) making up the rest.
One-third of the BlackBerry account base resides now outside North America, Balsillie said, noting that Latin America is the fastest growing of all international markets. The strength of international sales isn't news to observers of the mobile-phone space, but it's interesting to note that RIM is blazing ahead in those markets while companies such as Nokia, which haven't managed to make a splash with smartphones, are struggling.
As is usual on these calls, there were some interesting tidbits that fell out in the course of the conversation. For instance, RIM's obviously not abandoning its business users anytime soon. One of its most appealing applications is actually geared toward real-estate agents -- it'll unlock those key-holding lockboxes for home-viewing purposes.
And there was talk as well Quickplay Media's just-announced PrimeTime2Go service, which will allow for downloads of TV programming to SD cards over Wi-Fi for BlackBerry Bold and Curve 8900 owners.
Looking ahead, RIM predicts Q1 revenue betwen $3.3 billion and $3.5 billion, gross margins of 43-44%, and per-share earnings of 88-97 cents. The market got frankly a bit giddy at the good earnings news, shooting RIM's shares up over 22% in after-hours trading. At press time, the stock was up to 60.00 after closing the day at 49.09.
RIM/BlackBerry IS F*ING SH*T!
...not only for being such ba*tards for manoeuvres like removing BB Maps when installing the latest firmware upgrade in order to force you to give more money to the signal providers by using "data plan scams" rather than plain GPS, but also because they cant keep up with great desgin and technology such as the one on my Nokia E71!
Whoever buys a RIM/BlackBerry and keeps for good rather than selling it or throw it away after a week can only be called one thing: A F*ING IDI*T!
FU*K s***BE*RY! LICK MY a** RIM!!! >:oD
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|While I couldn't agree more that BBs are POS, so is iPhone. I have yet to any phone that is worse for business than ugly, unusable BB or the unreliable and unsupported iPhone.
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|Oddly enough, this article *originally* started with "Pre who?" -- for once, not an iPhone crack out of me. I think the editing elves were having a bit of fun, though the whole "time is now" thing is kind of... well, read fast and you won't notice :-) .
As for whether the iPhone or the various Blackberry models are good, bad, or worse, I really do think it comes down to what people like to use and personally find intuitive. I don't like touchscreens against my cheek or NSA surveillance, so the iPhone was right out for me; I currently own a BlackBerry Pearl, and though I'm happily impressed with the new Apps Store, the overall phone interface is miserably obtuse and the two-letters-per-miniature-key pad is just godawful. And so I use that phone for very little besides voice calls, stick for Net access and so forth with my beloved typing-friendly Sidekick despite its unreasonable lack of support for Facebook / Gtalk / etc, and wait for the Pre. Which, hey, may break my heart and make me cry, but based on what I've seen and how I personally like to interact with my devices, I'm going to live in hope.
That's my truth. Yours is apt to be different. All this is just to say that though I love to see comment on my articles, I've never in life heard anyone convince anyone else about interface superiority through argument, and certainly never through arguments with personal attacks. Keep it on the merits of the gear, please, and the first person I see come in here ranting about the One True Jesusphone and how nothing else can possibly compare and we're all stupid for disagreeing I'm gonna... I don't know, call your mom. Or encourage the other commenters to point and laugh :-) .
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|I use my gf's iphone (that I pay for) to browse the net. Otherwise I'm stuck on WM6.1 for a while.
I would use an iphone myself except it must be tethered to itunes, and I can't stand interacting with that app.
My single interaction with BB's has been pulling people's data off of them to migrate into iphones.
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|Re iTunes: Preach, friend. I remember the Apple presentation where His Turtleneckedness (don't say the name or he might appear, Beetlejuice-like, the third time the page is reloaded) claimed that people were coming up to him all the time telling him that iTunes for Windows was the GREATEST APP EVER ON THEIR MACHINES ZOMG THANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!!1eleven1! . I really did throw up in my mouth a little hearing such nonsense -- the Windows version crashed like Lindsay Lohan in a go-cart on my XP box, and even on my MacBook it's a cranky little thing that molested my poor dear MP3 player. Love the radio stations, but otherwise No. Thank. You.
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|Technically speaking both the Blackberry and the Iphone are outstanding hightech tools.
wether one prefers one to the other should'nt matter in sec rating the tool for what it is.
Difference is here to help create a better world, not a more negative one.
Have some nice talks....
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|Why i apreciate your candor, I however have to disagree. As an owner of a blackberry storm and the ones before it. For what i do it is absolutely essential. Nothing works better than it does. It's not designed to be a "toy" phone. It is a amazing business class communication device. The iPhone was designed as a consumer device then they have attempted to add business features to it.
I think if you spent more than a few fleeting moments with a blackberry you'd understand. Then again maybe not. As i'm sure my needs in a device are completely different than yours.
I love the fact that i can have complete encrypted communications, i love that i can have my e-mails pushed to my device. I love that if i loose my device i can go to my enterprise server and have the device wiped remotely so the information contained in it doesn't get to people of a shadier intent.
The list of things that my blackberry does but an iPhone doesn't goes on and on. As i'm sure the list of things your iphone does that my blackberry doesn't does as well. But from a business standpoint it's a much much better device. Then for me having the device on the verizon network is a boon in and of itself. I've had at&t for the two years of the contract required of me , and i have to say i've never dropped more calls, missed more messages and generally had a poorer service than i had then. Now i can't say that's the way at&t is everywhere but definitely in michigan it is.
As for trying to figure out the UI, hmm i guess i just know where to look on a blackberry. It's where it always is, pretty easy to find if you ask me. Nothing too overly complicated, just lacks all the fancy pictures like the iphone, i guess i like to read is all.
In conclusion i'm glad that RIM doesn't pander to the lowest common denomiator. You can have your iPhone, enjoy playing games and whatnot. I'll be doing my job keeping all my networks & server farms running thanks.
-Wayne
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|"I love the fact that i can have complete encrypted communications, i love that i can have my e-mails pushed to my device. I love that if i loose my device i can go to my enterprise server and have the device wiped remotely so the information contained in it doesn't get to people of a shadier intent."
iPhone does these things too.
"Then for me having the device on the verizon network is a boon in and of itself. I've had at&t for the two years of the contract required of me , and i have to say i've never dropped more calls, missed more messages and generally had a poorer service than i had then."
Funny how i can say the same thing about Verizon. I used to think dropped calls and lousy reception was a normal thing on cell phones...that is until i switched to AT&T.
"In conclusion i'm glad that RIM doesn't pander to the lowest common denomiator." Well, it does. It has a barely usable interface, horrible quality build unless you love cheapo plastic, and a very dated design. Funny how the Storm tries to copy the "toy" iPhone in every way. By hey, it "clicks" ROFL.
Consumers have spoken with their wallets, when it is their money, the iPhone wins hands down. When the clueless IT clowns at companies force people to use the inferior RIM devices, they are only hurting themselves. Glad my company is moving forward and will start rolling out iPhones so people can do real work....you know be productive on a _real_ platform.
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|"Consumers have spoken with their wallets, when it is their money, the iPhone wins hands down. When the clueless IT clowns at companies force people to use the inferior RIM devices, they are only hurting themselves."
Funny this articles states 70% of their sales last year were to consumers and then you come with this comment. I wonder if all Apple fans are like that, ignoring the world and saying whatever they want without stopping for a while and realizing it's not like that.
And business are money driven. So, the device that makes them make more money win in the end. That's BlackBerry even while you don't want to acknowledge it.
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|They gave me a Blackberry at work and good lord, what a POS. I guess i am just spoiled by my iPhone. My father in law asked me to look at the Storm his law firm gave him as he could not figure out how to adjust things....took me about a hour of messing around their horrid UI to figure it out. just for fun i changed the same settings on my iPhone in about 5 seconds. Bottom line, RIM phones are garbage compared to the iPhone.
My employer is currently running a trial of iPhones....can not wait until they switch off the crap RIM devices.
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