Telecom & Wireless

RIM, Down The Drain (RIMM)

Rimm_logoResearch In Motion Ltd. (NASDAQ: RIMM) posted disappointing results.  The Blackberry maker reported earnings of $0.86 on $2.58 billion in revenue.  First Call had estimates of $0.87 for earnings and $2.6 billion for revenue.  Its guidance didn’t get much better for those hoping the light earnings would be a one-time event.

For the current quarter, RIM sees earnings of $0.89 to $0.97 and revenue of $2.95 to $3.1 billion in revenues.  First Callestimates are $0.98 and $2.94 billion.  Margintargets are 47% vs. 50.7% for this lastquarter.  For such a high-growth stock, this just doesn’t cut it.

The revenue breakdown for the quarter was approximately 82% fordevices, 13% for service, 3% for software and 2% for other revenue. RIMshipped approximately 6.1 million devices during the quarter. Thecompany added 2.6 million net subscriber additionsand expects to add about 2.9 million this coming quarter.

RIM shares closed up almost 1% at $97.53 today after earlier plunging almost 17% to $81.00.  Its stock is now in danger of challenging its 52-week lows of $80.20. This is what happenswhen Wall Street decides that high-growth companies are maturing orhaving a hard time keeping up with earnings expectations.

Jon C. Ogg
September 25, 2008

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