Telecom Lead India: Research In Motion (RIM) CEO Thorsten Heins says timing of BlackBerry 10 launch event on January 30, 2013 may impact sales of current BlackBerry 7 products as some customers may defer purchasing decisions.
RIM will be significantly increasing its marketing spending this quarter as expected, to support the global launch of BlackBerry 10, and the BlackBerry smartphone maker expects to report an operating loss for the fourth quarter.
RIM, which did not have new products in the latest quarter, expects that there will be pressure on operating results as it gets set to launch its BlackBerry 10 platform in the fourth quarter.
The BlackBerry smartphone maker aims to continue to consider using pricing initiatives on BlackBerry 7 devices and service fees in some markets as a way to maintain our subscriber base and drive more BlackBerry users.
In Q3 for the three months ended December 1, 2012, RIM’s revenue was $2.7 billion, down 5 percent from $2.9 billion in the previous quarter and down 47 percent from $5.2 billion in the same quarter of fiscal 2012.
The revenue breakdown for the quarter was approximately 60 percent for hardware, 36 percent for service and 4 percent for software and other revenue.
During Q3, RIM shipped approximately 6.9 million BlackBerry smartphones and approximately 255,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets.
Adjusted net loss of RIM for the third quarter was $114 million.
More than 150 carriers are currently completing technical acceptance programs for the first BlackBerry 10 products, and beta trials of BlackBerry Enterprise Service 10 are underway at more than 120 enterprises including 64 Fortune 500 companies.
