Like many companies, Research In Motion has a fiscal calendar that does not match the natural calendar. While we aren’t the first website to break news on the earnings report given today, we felt it our obligation to our readers and to a company that has brought us so much technology over the years to report on the financial side of Canada’s very own financial behemoth (yes, that sounds rather humorous and oxymoronic).
Surprising to some and not so much to others, Research In Motion continues it’s streak of amazing reports of revenue gains. This time around, they have doubled their Q4 Fiscal revenue and their Year-End Fiscal revenue from the same periods a year ago. In the press release from Waterloo, the following figures our highlighted:
- Q4 revenue at $1.88 billion, up 102% from $930.4 million
- Fiscal revenue at $6.01 billion, up 98% from $3.04 billion last year
- 81% revenue in Q4 attributed to device sales
- 4.4 million devices shipped in Q4
- 14 million devices shipped during fiscal year
- 2.18 million new BlackBerry subscribers added in Q4
- 14 million total active BlackBerry subscribers
- Subscriber growth up 32% from Q3
In a recent conversation I had with the one and only Boy Genius (yes, he actually exists in human form), we discussed about how the coming months would be massively decisive over RIM’s short-term future. These critical months would include the coronation of the Apple iPhone into the enterprise market, as well as the potential launch of the 3G incarnation of the God device. Of course, RIM will unleash the BlackBerry 9000, but will it be too little too late, or perhaps a thunderous disappointment? Rumors are saying the BlackBerry 9000 will surface at the Wireless Enterprise Symposium with employees from RIM being allowed to carry them, a la the BlackBerry Curve at WES 2007.
Afterhours trading has RIM’s stock up over $5.00 per share, a number that should be expected to skyrocket in the morning. While we continue to hear “iPhone This” and “iPhone That”, it’s amazing to see The Little Engine That Could Research In Motion keep “surviving” in record leaps and bounds.
