Grant Gross
Senior Writer

RIM posts revenue gains on BlackBerry sales

news
Sep 16, 20102 mins

Research In Motion shipped more than 12 million BlackBerry smartphones last quarter

Research In Motion reported revenue gains of 9 percent in its latest financial quarter, driven by Blackberry subscriber gains and record device sales, the company said Thursday.

RIM’s revenue was $4.62 billion for its second quarter of 2011, which ended Aug. 28, compared to revenue of $4.24 million for the second quarter of 2010. The company shipped 12.1 million BlackBerry smartphones during the period, a quarterly record for RIM and a 45 percent increase from the year earlier.

[ iPhone, BlackBerry, or Android? Whatever handheld you use or manage, turn to InfoWorld for the latest developments. Subscribe to InfoWorld’s Mobilize newsletter today. ]

Apple, by comparison, sold 8.4 million iPhones during the quarter that ended June 27. Google’s Android operating system shipped in 14.7 million phones during the second quarter of 2010, according to research from Canalys.

Some analysts have predicted that RIM will lose ground in the business market to Apple and Android, but its subscriber base is growing. RIM now has more than 50 million subscribers, after a net increase of 4.5 million during the quarter, the company said.

The BlackBerry sales record shows “strong demand for RIM’s portfolio of BlackBerry smartphones and services in markets around the world,” Jim Balsillie, RIM’s co-CEO, said in a statement. The company expects heavy demand as it rolls out its new Blackberry Torch to new markets, he added.

RIM started selling the BlackBerry Torch 9800, featuring a new operating system designed to be multimedia-friendly, in early August.

RIM’s net income for the latest quarter was $796.7 million, up from $768.9 million in the second quarter of its 2010 fiscal year. Diluted earnings per share was $1.46, while analysts had predicted earnings of $1.35 per share, according to Thomson Reuters.

Grant Gross covers technology and telecom policy in the U.S. government for The IDG News Service. Follow Grant on Twitter at GrantGross. Grant’s e-mail address is grant_gross@idg.com.

Grant Gross

Grant Gross, a senior writer at CIO, is a long-time IT journalist who has focused on AI, enterprise technology, and tech policy. He previously served as Washington, D.C., correspondent and later senior editor at IDG News Service. Earlier in his career, he was managing editor at Linux.com and news editor at tech careers site Techies.com. As a tech policy expert, he has appeared on C-SPAN and the giant NTN24 Spanish-language cable news network. In the distant past, he worked as a reporter and editor at newspapers in Minnesota and the Dakotas. A finalist for Best Range of Work by a Single Author for both the Eddie Awards and the Neal Awards, Grant was recently recognized with an ASBPE Regional Silver award for his article “Agentic AI: Decisive, operational AI arrives in business.”

More from this author