Research in Motion posted first quarter results for fiscal year 2010 yesterday and, for only the second time in its history, the BlackBerry maker saw a decline in subscriber growth dropping to 3.8 million net new subscribers down from 3.9 million the previous quarter. The rest of RIMs numbers were pretty good and the BlackBerry actually saw on overall increase in its U.S. leading market share.
“We are starting fiscal 2010 with strong financial performance and impressive market share gains, including a 55% share of the U.S. smartphone market according to IDC’s latest estimate,” said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at RIM. “The industry leading BlackBerry product portfolio is driving strong customer demand around the world and our penetration of new market segments continues to expand. We are particularly excited about the strength of our product portfolio for fiscal 2010 and we are looking forward to driving continued growth and profitability in our business throughout the remainder of the year.”
That may all well and good, however, the market is mostly reacting to RIM’s drop in subscriber growth and concerns that the BlackBerry is seeing increased pressure in the space from competitors such as the iPhone, Google Android devices, and the Palm Pre. RIM’s stock price has fallen 0.67 down to $76.04 in after hours trading.
It will be really interesting to see if RIM makes a comeback this quarter while having to compete with the new iPhone 3G S, a $99 iPhone 3G, and a Palm Pre that is getting rave reviews. RIM has released or is about to release more BlackBerry devices on more carriers at the same time than at any point in its history and I am guessing that it will be a pretty interesting summer in the smartphone market…
Why the dip? Because they really need to hurry up and get more “new” devices out. I am a big BB fan.. yet I switched to an iPhone 3G (for now) as an upgrade from my 8100. I think people are wising up and realizing that the tech is lagging.
While the iPhone has some incredible features, its still missing the “crack”. I don’t know if I will keep it, but this device makes it VERY clear that RIM *really* has to step up their game – I don’t know if I can settle for the 8900 at this point.
You should have named this post “The iPhone Back On Top… Again”
You were so quick to jump on the iPhone when the Curve overtook it in sales when Verizon had the buy one get one free promotion going on. Why no mention that the iPhone is back on top?
BECAUSE THIS IS RIMARKABLE !!! CANT YOU READ APPLEFANBOI OR ARE YOU TOO BUSY ON YOUR KNEES WORSHIPING STEVE JOBS !!! KEEP YOU IPHONE WE DONT WANT YOU BACK……
PISS OFF APPLE FREAKS WAIT TILL FIRST END OF 2009 BEGIN OF 2010 THERE WILL BE YOU ANSWER
Ok, settle down folks. Let’s be rational here. Go back two quarters and look at the subscriber additon number, then look at this number. HUGE growth. Why was last quarter so strong? 2 reasons: 1 the storm launched just before the quarter’s beginning, and 2 the holiday selling season was huge last year. So don’t read into this and extrapolate some nefarious trend. RIM is still growing and is competing just fine. The iPhone is doing well too but it has architectural problems that will limit carriers willingness to offer cheap data plans, and adoption rates will lag, especially in tougher economic times. If 1 iPhone equals anywhere from 10-20 blackberries in terms of bandwidth consumption, which one will carriers want to push? I believe as more data enabled smartphones are adopted, carrier bandwidth capacity will be tested. Just look at ATTs network when the 3G iPhones were released. They crushed the network. Now ATT is incurring huge capex to keep up. So maybe marketing yourself as the largest user of data on a given network isn’t the smartest strategy in the long run. On the other hand RIM built their architecture with efficiency and compression. This will matter more and more over time. So who cares is Curve outsells iPhone in a given quarter or not. The bottomline is that we are in the early stages of the smartphone adoption curve and RIM will be one of the leaders, along with apple. And all those emotionally driven iphanatics can suck a fat one as they are unable to see the industry in a rational light.