R-I-M Set For Earnings (RIMM, AAPL, PALM)

The entire cell phone and electronic gadget market is going to brace for Research In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) earnings on Wednesday afternoon.  While the companies are grossly different, you can expect that traders and analysts will be trying to interpolate all of the projection to see how this affects Steve Jobs and iPhone sales over at Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL).

The Canadian-based company estimates from First Call are $0.85 EPS on $2.27 Billion in revenues.  Next quarter’s estimates are $0.90 EPS on $2.43 Billion in revenues, and the estimates for its Fiscal Feb-2009 are $3.88 EPS on $10.35 Billion in revenues. 

Analysts have an average of target range of $160.00 to $165.00, although recent analyst targets hikes now have some targets north of $220.00.  One wild card that hasn’t been noted by many is the completely sold out status of Apple’s iPhone driving buyers to get Blackberry smartphones.  Apple will have lost an average of 45 to 60 days worth of iPhone sales as the old units were sold out and while it waits for the 3G iPhone to come to market.

We’ll follow up with more detailed options analysis, technical analysis, and individual metrics ahead of the report as the details are more defined.  As a reminder, these estimates from First Call may slightly change before the actual report.

We will also see earnings out of Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) on Thursday, although if you go ask any iPhone developers or Blackberry addicts about the impact there they are likely to ask you, "WHO ARE THEY?".

Here is a full earnings calendar for next week in key technology stocks.

Jon C. Ogg
June 21, 2008