Research In Motion reported a drop in quarterly results and said it expects further delays to new products. The BlackBerry maker reported revenues for the fiscal third quarter to 26 November down 6 percent from a year ago to USD 5.2 billion, in line with its earlier profit warning.
During the quarter, RIM shipped 14.1 million BlackBerry smartphones and 150,000 PlayBook tablets.
The company's net profit tumbled to USD 265 million or USD 0.51 per share, from USD 911 million or USD 1.74 per share a year earlier, due to the earlier announced charges to write off unsold PlayBooks and deal with the disruption to global BlackBerry services.
For the fourth quarter, RIM forecast revenues of USD 4.6-4.9 billion, a gross margin around 38 percent, smartphone shipments of 11-12 million and EPS of USD 0.85-0.95.
According to news wire reports, RIM executives conceded in a conference call on results that new devices running BlackBerry 10 won't be ready until the "latter part" of 2012. They were previously expected to launch in the first quarter next year. The BB10 phones were delayed because the company wanted to deliver devices with better performance and battery life, said co-CEO Mike Lazaridis. The chipsets that will allow those capabilities won't be available until mid-2012.
In an attempt to calm shareholders' frustrations with the company, the two co-CEOs are cutting their salaries this year to a symbolic USD 1. They also plan a review of RIM's product portfolio, manufacturing and research strategy.
