Struggling Canadian smartphone vendor Research In Motion (RIMM) is widely expected to post its third consecutive quarterly loss on Thursday after the market closes. Following the company’s dismal first fiscal quarter report in which it said it lost $0.37 per share and announced plans to lay off 5,000 workers, RIM is expected to post a wider loss of $0.45 per share for the second quarter. As the company struggles to survive until next year when it will finally release its first BlackBerry 10 smartphones, a pleasant surprise emerged during Tuesday’s BlackBerry Jam conference: RIM isn’t losing subscribers.
RIM CEO Thorsten Heins revealed during his keynote presentation that the company’s total global subscriber base grew to 80 million users last quarter. RIM previously announced that it had 78 million total subscribers at the end of the first fiscal quarter. While growth has slowed significantly in recent months, RIM’s subscriber count is not in decline, as had been rumored.
RIM plans to launch its first BlackBerry 10 smartphones early in the first calendar quarter of 2013.
