RIM reports Q4 earnings; revenue misses estimates despite record shipments

General

Shares of Research in Motion stock declined over 12% after hours on Thursday as the company reported its fourth-quarter earnings for its 2011 fiscal year. RIM reported revenue that missed Wall Street’s consensus on device shipments that exceeded expectations by 200,000 units. Fourth-quarter revenue came in at $5.6 billion, just below the $5.64 billion analysts expected. Device shipments for the quarter totalled 14.9 million units, beating estimates of 14.7 million units, and full-year shipments were a record 52.3 million units — a 43% improvement over the year prior. Full-year revenue of $19.9 billion grew 33% over the 2010 fiscal year and net income was up 47% year-over-year to $3.4 billion. “We are pleased to report record shipments and financial performance in fiscal 2011,” said RIM’s Co-CEO Jim Balsillie in a statement. “As we enter fiscal 2012, RIM is in an excellent position to benefit from the continuing convergence of the mobile communications and mobile computing markets. We are laying a strong foundation for RIM’s expanding market opportunity through focused investments and we are extremely excited about our smartphone, tablet and platform roadmaps.” Hit the break for the full press release.

Research In Motion Reports Year-End and Fourth Quarter Results for Fiscal 2011

WATERLOO, ONTARIO–(Marketwire – 03/24/11) – Research In Motion Limited (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM - News)(TSX:RIM - News), a world leader in the mobile communications market, today reported fourth quarter results for the three months and fiscal year ended February 26, 2011 (all figures in U.S. dollars and U.S. GAAP).

Highlights:

--  Record BlackBerry® smartphone shipments of 52.3 million grew 43% over
    fiscal 2010
--  Fiscal 2011 revenue grew 33% over fiscal 2010 to $19.9 billion and
    earnings per share grew 47% over the prior fiscal year to $6.34 per
    share diluted
--  Ongoing investment in PlayBook and QNX-based platform development in Q1
    with PlayBook launch date of April 19th
--  BlackBerry was the number one selling smartphone brand in the United
    States(1), Canada(1), Latin America(1) and the UK(2) for calendar 2010

Q4 and Fiscal 2011 Results:

Revenue for the fiscal year ended February 26, 2011 was $19.9 billion, up 33% from $15 billion last year. Revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 was $5.6 billion, up 1% from $5.5 billion in the previous quarter and up 36% from $4.1 billion in the same quarter of last year. The revenue breakdown for the quarter was approximately 81% for devices, 16% for service, and 3% for software and other revenue. During the quarter, RIM shipped approximately 14.9 million BlackBerry smartphones for a total of 52.3 million smartphones in fiscal 2011.

“We are pleased to report record shipments and financial performance in fiscal 2011,” said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “As we enter fiscal 2012, RIM is in an excellent position to benefit from the continuing convergence of the mobile communications and mobile computing markets. We are laying a strong foundation for RIM’s expanding market opportunity through focused investments and we are extremely excited about our smartphone, tablet and platform roadmaps.”

Net income for fiscal 2011 was $3.4 billion, or $6.34 per share diluted, up 47% over fiscal 2010. The Company’s net income for the quarter was $934 million, or $1.78 per share diluted, compared with net income of $911 million, or $1.74 per share diluted, in the prior quarter and net income of $710 million, or $1.27 per share diluted, in the same quarter last year.

The total of cash, cash equivalents, short-term and long-term investments was $2.7 billion as of February 26, 2011, compared to $2.5 billion at the end of the previous quarter, an increase of $227 million from the prior quarter. Cash flow from operations in Q4 was approximately $1.0 billion. Uses of cash included intangible asset additions of approximately $365 million, capital expenditures of approximately $304 million and business acquisitions of approximately $161 million.

FY2012 and Q1 Outlook:

For the full year fiscal 2012, RIM expects earnings per share to be in excess of $7.50 fully diluted. Revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2012 ending May 28, 2011 is expected to be in the range of $5.2-$5.6 billion. Gross margin percentage for the first quarter is expected to be approximately 41.5%. Earnings per share for the first quarter are expected to be in the range of $1.47 -$1.55 per share diluted. This guidance range reflects a mix shift in handset towards lower ASP products in the first quarter and an increased level of investment in Research and Development and Sales and Marketing related to our tablet and platform initiatives. The guidance range is slightly wider than normal to reflect the risk of potential disruption in RIM’s supply chain as a result of the recent earthquake in Japan.

32 Comments
  • Anonymous

    Overnights are already down 9.5%. Looks like I’m gonna have to buy some RIMM tomorrow morning and make some money! If it drops 15% overnight, everyone should buy buy buy! Although, I’m sure the investors call at 5 will steady this out quite a bit.

  • Dfssdsd

    thats what happens when you sit on devices and OS’s too long… should of pushed them out 6 months earlier then they did.

    • anonymous

      Is that why they made a net profit of $934 M last quarter?

      • Anonymous

        The scary part is if their unit cost were still up where it was pre-iPhone they would’ve made $1.5 billion profit for the same period.

      • QNX Please

        RIM makes their phones in Canada, Mexico and the US. Apple uses slave like labour in China.

  • Anonymous

    BGR just LOVES bashing RIM….these are RECORD numbers, i repeat, RECORD numbers!!!! But they only show the negative side of not meeting ‘estimates’….like, wtf kinda post is that? I’m not even a berry fan and i know you gotta respect what RIM is doing, regardless of having aging tech or not.

    Curious to see what the playbook is going to bring to the table…it looks impressive.

    • Anonymous

      They’re record numbers, but only because RIM decided to stop releasing the numbers that aren’t so good. It’s why RIM stopped reporting the percentage of devices sold to new subscribers. . .the number was falling every quarter, from the high 60% range a few years back, down to the mid 30% range at the last report. Plus, we know the reason they missed their revenue goal is that they keep reducing their unit pricing. . .it’s trading revenue for sales.

      • QNX Please

        No one else reports these numbers either…

      • QNX Please

        No one else reports these numbers either…

  • QNX Please

    No new phone in the past quarter to boost revenues as the sale price of existing phones continues to decrease. Better get some new phones and that playbook out soon RIM.

    14.9 Million phones sold and increasing… I thought RIM was dead? Revenue only missed by $40,000,000 on $5.6 Billion… or 0.7% big deal. Still up over last quarter, and last years same quarter, which are all good news.

    • Todd

      Call 1-800-STAPLES (press 5 to speak to a real person) They told me today that they will have the PlayBook in stores this Sunday.

    • Todd

      Call 1-800-STAPLES (press 5 to speak to a real person) They told me today that they will have the PlayBook in stores this Sunday.

  • Tony

    So they post this but decide to skip the press release that officially announced being able to run Android apps on the Playbook. Nicely done BGR.

    • Rocker

      Agreed, there is your app ecosystem to shut up that other analyst that BGR posted about earlier. Funny no other blog picked up on that analyst…just BBERRY loving BGR…haha

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_GP2WYAHXS6CRUREISWBGPUSUGE Michael

    With so many “buy one Blackberry get one free” why would the have record shipments and losing money…..

    doesn’t take a Sheldon to figure this one out.

    • QNX Please

      Where does it say they are losing money? Last time I checked $934 million in profit was making money.

    • Qnx

      uhhh…how did they lose money? revenue was below expectations…that doenst mean the company lost money, douche.

      • RealDeal

        Some peoples grasp of economics doesn’t go beyond collecting allowance from Mommy.

  • Generatione

    Some of you guys are getting it. Revenues are below expectations while shipments are above expectation. Guess what? That means prices RIM is charging for their products has decreased, meaning lower margins, meaning lower profitability, meaning a lower stock price. RIM is a sinking ship – its just that the rising waters are keeping the ship up for the time being. Look at Nokia. Their prices on their phones started decreasing when they started to become irrelevant. It is only a matter of time (year or 2) before RIM is going under. RIM sucks!

    • QNX Please

      People like you have been saying RIM will be dead in 2 years… 2 years ago, yet they are increasing in profits, sales and revenue. The only thing that is decreasing is market share, and that is due to higher competition. Once QNX comes to phones this year, you wont be claiming RIM is going to die, you’ll own a BB.

      • moosebump

        Your name says it all. They are putting alot of faith in being able to sell BB6.1 devices this year which might be misplaced. No QNX until calendar 2012. Who would buy a BB6.1 when QNX just around the corner?

      • Qnx

        who would buy OS 5 and OS 6 devices when 6.1 and and QNX are around the corner? Apparently 53 million people did last year…

    • RudyH

      Ya Generatione…it might not have anything to do with RIM SPENDING MONEY neither right?

      Have you seen how much more advanced the BB OS is compared to the competition? Their UI has changed so much over the past year and half right now makes it makes iOS look dated.

      They have 4 new devices to be released within the next 3-4 quarters. This might be the most, not including an all new Playbook all within 1 year. That might be a record too for the company.

      You have to remember, RIM will sell their phones to retailers and give retailers a Manufactured Suggested Retail Price, MSRP, just like cars. It’s up to reseller to decide the price, and whether THEY want to take a loss on a phone. As well you have to remember carriers SUBSIDIZE phones. What you the consumer pay, doesn’t go directly into RIM’s pockets. That phone that was already paid for by the carrier.

      Let me guess since this is an Apple site, 90% of the posters are still in high school? Don’t know how business works.

      • Anonymous

        You’re right and neither does wall street! They don’t know anything about business.

  • Anonymous

    RIM needs help from Android and QNX. You don’t see Apple using anything RIMberry. Or you don’t see Android using anything RIMberry, etc. I mean those of you supporting RIM and saying how they are going to stay alive, awesome, dream all you like. But when a company needs a hand from another or others, your company knows it’s going down the drain. RIM may be around, but a blackberry with a QNX software in their smartphones, is not Blackberry. More like Brickberry. Oh btw, don’t forget your daily battery pulls and hourly restart times. I mean at least 4 minutes. HA!

    • Gnx

      Ignorance must be bliss.

    • Devon20000

      Ok enz0, you are an idiot, 1st of all android is a software company and RIM is a hardware and software company, RIM were the ones started the whole smartphone movement. So to say no one is taking anything from RIM you are wrong in so many ways. Also when you compare android phones to RIM devices you have to break it down to hardware and software, and yes there is some android phones that are using a RIM like form factor like the Droid Pro for example, and many other Android Pro devices. Lets talk about software, you have to remember RIM was originally made for business and when it comes to the security of emails and other data on RIM devices RIM stands at number 1, and yes other smartphone OSs take a lot from RIMs OS to appeal more for business users. All the other smartphone OSs are still trying to catch up. and since the majority of business trust only RIM devices and businesses are about making money and money is what makes the world go round so RIM will never die. Yes RIM is behind in the consumer market but in the business market they are far ahead and it is only a matter of time until they improve in the consumer market as well.

  • Qnx

    Obviously Q1 outlook is going to be lower when nothing new is expected device wise (aside from the Playbook) until the summer.

  • max

    I’m shorting this bitch bigtime!

  • http://twitter.com/UrbanEnigma Yves

    Lately, BGR’s RIM-related headlines are always somehow negative. Even when the news is good, they find someway to make it a backhanded compliment with their wording

    • Wake up.

      Yes, just like the comment in the Torch review about it’s “useless” screen resolution. Funny, it has exactly the same resolution as the iPhone 3GS. I don’t see BGR calling that useless.

  • RealDeal

    It’s funny that missing a revenue target by $40 million can cause the stock of a company with a market cap of $30 billion to drop by 10%. So a $40 million dollar short fall on revenue, despite record profits = a $3 billion drop in stock price? Gotta love Wall street.

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