RIM doubles revenue in Q4, Year-End
Like many companies, Research In Motion has a fiscal calendar that does not match the natural calendar. While we aren’t the first website to break news on the earnings report given today, we felt it our obligation to our readers and to a company that has brought us so much technology over the years to report on the financial side of Canada’s very own financial behemoth (yes, that sounds rather humorous and oxymoronic).
Surprising to some and not so much to others, Research In Motion continues it’s streak of amazing reports of revenue gains. This time around, they have doubled their Q4 Fiscal revenue and their Year-End Fiscal revenue from the same periods a year ago. In the press release from Waterloo, the following figures our highlighted:
- Q4 revenue at $1.88 billion, up 102% from $930.4 million
- Fiscal revenue at $6.01 billion, up 98% from $3.04 billion last year
- 81% revenue in Q4 attributed to device sales
- 4.4 million devices shipped in Q4
- 14 million devices shipped during fiscal year
- 2.18 million new BlackBerry subscribers added in Q4
- 14 million total active BlackBerry subscribers
- Subscriber growth up 32% from Q3
In a recent conversation I had with the one and only Boy Genius (yes, he actually exists in human form), we discussed about how the coming months would be massively decisive over RIM’s short-term future. These critical months would include the coronation of the Apple iPhone into the enterprise market, as well as the potential launch of the 3G incarnation of the God device. Of course, RIM will unleash the BlackBerry 9000, but will it be too little too late, or perhaps a thunderous disappointment? Rumors are saying the BlackBerry 9000 will surface at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium with employees from RIM being allowed to carry them, a la the BlackBerry Curve at WES 2007.
Afterhours trading has RIM’s stock up over $5.00 per share, a number that should be expected to skyrocket in the morning. While we continue to hear "iPhone This" and "iPhone That", it’s amazing to see The Little Engine That Could Research In Motion keep "surviving" in record leaps and bounds.
It really amuses me how the apple fanboys say everyone copies apple as if apple is the only company to have an original idea. That said apple did not create the cell phone Moto did, apple did not sell the first pmp. Apple did not offer the first ultra portable laptop with full keyboard (Palm Foleo was ahead but killed off).
The only thing apple is any good at is largely design. However every iPod does not have a user swappable battery, neither does the iPhone instead they want 2-3 year replacement cycles and they do not want anyone selling after market batteries.
Now I have a lot of apple equipment and I do like what I have but I have no need for an iphone with my BB 8820 and soon the BB 9xxx due out this summer.
To me nothing is an iphone killer because products are equal to the iphone.
One final thought on the enterprise market. I look forward to the first Fortune 100 exec who has his iphone (as if he would) and is typing a critical email that is time sensitive and the phone rings. Per his royal high and might jobs ALL APPS will CLOSE when the PHONE RINGS, PERIOD. So you cannot be on the phone and open your email, just the phone. Smells like less than Palm OS to me.
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