RIM: When 36% Growth Is A Disappointment

Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) announced that its fiscal fourth quarter sales for the period which ended on February 26 rose 36% to $4.1 billion. During the quarter, RIM shipped about 14.9 million BlackBerry smartphones for a total of 52.3 million smartphones in fiscal 2011, the handset company said.

RIM issued guidance which was slightly below Wall St. expectations and said that its supply chain could be interrupted by the earthquake in Japan. The company’s stock immediately fell 10%.

RIM has taken two approaches to convince investors that it is still a growth company. The first is to say that it is the preferred smartphone among corporate clients. RIM has dedicated servers that make messaging among its devices more secure. That is an advantage over Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) products and most smartphones powered by the Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android operating system

RIM’s other contention is that its Playbook tablet will do well, particularly with business users. That is a reasonable argument if the product is any good. RIM already has a strong foothold in the enterprise market. The tablet portion of that market is RIM’s to lose.

Wall St. expects that the smartphone pie has only so many pieces. Once they are gone, a company like RIM may have little prospect for growth, particularly in contrast to its success before the iPhone and iPad were launched. That assumption is wrong. The smartphone and tablet markets are growing fast enough that several manufacturers will likely do very well.

RIM’s $20 billion in annual revenue may not be nearly as big as Apple’s $80 billion. Apple’s sales grew at 71% last quarter. But, RIMM does not sell highly successful PCs and multimedia devices. And, it is at the beginning of a new product cycle for tablets. Apple is already several quarters into its similar business.

RIM’s stock is up only 30% in the last two years. That compares to a gain of 80% for the NASDAQ and 220% for Apple. RIM’s prospects are not nearly that grim.

The market, so many market experts say, is overbought. Some companies has been left out in the frenzy. One of those is RIM with its 36% growth rate. Something is odd about that.

Douglas A. McIntyre