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RIM posts big gains in Q3

Posted by Joe on December 21, 2007

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Something we didn’t know: Apparently Canada works on a different quarterly system than we do in the U.S. We’re used to quarterly reports being delivered in January, April, July, and October, the months after each quarter ends. But we got an email from Research In Motion yesterday with the company’s third quarter results, which it says is the period ending on December 1. So let’s start with the important numbers: subscribers and units shipped.

Approximately 1.65 million people picked up BlackBerry accounts from September until December, bringing the total BlackBerry subscribers up to 12 million. This is significant because it brings BlackBerry subscribership to the level of Alltel, America’s fifth-largest wireless provider.

RIM shipped 3.9 million devices during the quarter, certainly fueled by the release of the CDMA Pearl.

As for revenue, it was up 100 percent from the third quarter 2006, to $1.67 billion. This is also a 22 percent increase from the second quarter of this year. So it’s safe to say that RIM isn’t really feeling any effects from the iPhone — though most people in-the-know didn’t think it would, anyway.

“RIM’s performance in the third quarter was solid with strong adoption of BlackBerry products and services continuing across multiple market sectors, including enterprise, small and medium business and consumer market segments,” said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “RIM and its partners continue to execute our business plans effectively. We are pleased to see continuing growth amongst business and government users, with the BlackBerry platform being deployed for a widening range of applications, and we are also pleased with the excellent consumer sales results achieved so far in the holiday buying season.”