Despite fierce competition from the iPhone, Research In Motion (RIM) is fighting back with the BlackBerry.
The smartphone maker RIM has just announced healthy profits of $710 million (£468 million) in the three months between December 2009 and February 2010 – a 37% increase on the net profit made in the same period a year earlier.
And the company has seen its revenue increase by 35% over the last year, rising to $15 billion (£9.8 billion) from $11 billion (£7 billion) in 2009.
In terms of handsets, shipments of BlackBerry phones rose to 37 million for the year – an increase of 40%. And 10.5 million of these handsets were shipped in Q4, enabling RIM to hang on to its status as the largest-selling smartphone maker.
Customers seem to be flocking to the BlackBerry manufacturer too. In Q4 alone, 4.9 million new customers moved over to RIM, and for the whole year customer numbers rose by 65% to a total of 41 million.
Jim Balsillie, RIM co-chief executive said: “We managed to significantly expand our international market share while also maintaining our longstanding leadership in North America where BlackBerry continues to be the top-selling smartphone brand.”
But what about the competition RIM faces from Apple and its iPhone? Well, according to Tim Renowden, analyst from Ovum’s device team: “It [RIM] remains the biggest smartphone player on the market and although it needs to be aware of Apple’s growth, there’s no need to panic.”
Innovation will be key to RIM’s continued success in the smartphone market.
Mr Renowden added: “The firm said it would be launching devices with higher average selling prices than some of its other devices, suggesting it may be adding to its Storm range. It has already confirmed it’s making a new web browser but other development could be in store too.”
You can read more on this BlackBerry story at the source.
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