Hot on the heels of its BlackBerry Jam developer conference, Research In Motion has published its quarterly results.
Worldwide customer numbers were up to around 80 million users, with approximately 7.4 million BlackBerry smartphones and 13,000 PlayBook tablets shipped in the quarter. It reported a net quarterly loss of $235 million (approx. £145 million), although more than half of this was restructuring costs. A year ago the company had made a $329 million profit and shipped 10.6 million smartphones plus 200,000 tablets.
Revenue was $2.9 billion, down 31% from $4.2 billion in the same quarter of 2012. Approximately 60% of this was for hardware, 35% for service and 5% for software & other revenue.
RIM reported that it had $2.3 billion in cash and investments at the end of the quarter, around $100 million more than in the previous three months.
Thorsten Heins, President and CEO of RIM, said “Despite the significant changes we are implementing across the organization, our second quarter results demonstrate that RIM is progressing on its financial and operational commitments during this major transition . Subscribers grew to approximately 80 million global users, revenue grew sequentially from the first quarter, cash, cash equivalents, short-term and long-term investments increased by approximately $100 million to $2.3 billion, and carriers and developers are responding well to previews of our upcoming BlackBerry 10 platform. Make no mistake about it, we understand that we have much more work to do, but we are making the organizational changes to drive improvements across the company, our employees are committed and motivated, and BlackBerry 10 is on track to launch in the first calendar quarter of 2013.”
The quarterly loss was less than many expected, with RIM’s share price rising after the results announcement.