“Research In Motion tonight reported one of the best quarters in its history from sheer expansion. The company shipped an all time high of 10.1 million BlackBerries from September through November, smashing its previous record of 8.3 million. Of those, 4.4 million were new to BlackBerry, and the tally pushed RIM’s active accounts to about 36 million,” Electronista reports.
“About 75 million BlackBerries have shipped in the company’s history,” Electronista reports.
“The company is equally aggressive in its forecast and expects to ship at least 10.6 million BlackBerries by the end of February,” Electronista reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Congrats, RIM! This news bodes well for Apple (even though Apple doesn’t run perpetual “Buy One, Get One Free” promos).
Who said there’s a sucker born every minute?
PT Barnum…and Bill Gates
That would be PT Ballmer.
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So, 10.1 is a quarterly record for Blackberry, even though they are on multiple networks and have many models. How many did Apple sell on their 1 network with 1 model?
And do not forget the buy one get one free deals. I bet if Apple did the same ATT would go BOOM with a big mushroom cloud and bright flash.
Great, they can all now email on the go…
Hang on to those corporate suckers RIM.
Quad Core
Apple sold less, about 7 mil? . And Rimm profit up 50% so they must be doing something right. Stock up 12.3% after hours. AAPL down another $3.17 today. Maybe we should not be so cocky fellow fanboys.
In my experience, the iPhone has raised awareness of smartphone and their usefullness in general. Companies have expanded the circle of who gets a smartphone through them. In corporations it is almost all BlackBerries. In my organization we’ve been offered a free Blackberry, or an iPhone that we buy and they pay for the service. 9/10 chose to buy iPhones. It’s like the pc vs mac numbers. It’d be interesting to know how many of these Blackberries were bought by consumers on their own where the iPhone is foccused on, and how many by companies where the iPhone in my estimation is just barely getting it’s toe wet in so far.
Why is RIM’s stock up so much on this sales announcement? Hell, when Apple posts record sales the stock more often than not will take a hit!
They shipped out that many devices but were they “free” phones with renewal or activation? Because if so, no wonder they shipped out that many. Also consider : shipped for sale at stores or actually sold?
As I read it they had 4.4 mil new customers. Does not sound like the boss is handing them out to me. I am just trying to look at it objectively without the need to belittle their improved sales.
RIMM’s growth is being fueled by the consumer market, exactly the market that Apple has targeted. This isn’t bad, because the corporate market is saturated and the iPhone is making inroads there, as well as growing like a weed in the consumer space.
It should also be noted that RIMM accomplished this by slashing prices, something that Apple hasn’t done in the past.
I’m not overly impressed by RIMM’s guidance, it includes December which is the #1 selling month of the year. So essentially they are saying that because of December they will be able to maintain flat sales in what most other companies consider a down quarter. Had it not been for their weird fiscal year RIMM would have guided downward.
Blackberry’s results do show that Apple still has some work to do to capture the business market. I consider myself a bonafide appleHomer and I was expecting that RIM would be down not only in sales but profits. It didn’t happen. But I bet Apple will have a record Christmas quarter.
I’ll bet RIM has saturated their market and will not have a repeat quarter unless they continue on their present course.
And what happens to the stock next quarter when the sales gimmicks fail to boost sales over the ten-million mark?
This quarter is a hard act to follow. But, my hat’s off to RIM.
This was an excellent quarter and it shows RIM’s strategies are working. Why can’t you guys just give them credit instead of getting all defensive and trying to conjure up some nonsense.
Facts are that 80% of the net adds were to consumer. So iPhone doesn’t seem to be impeding RIM at all.
You can talk all the trash you want about marketing offers (incidentally, those are created by the CARRIER not RIM and RIM gets full price for each of those) or whatever but this quarter and next quarter’s guidance show this company is here to stay. Accept it or complain some more like an unhappy child – your choice.
You are a joke sire, the guidance is excellent. If you were disappointed it’s only because you have unrealistic expectations. The above mentioned guidance isn’t what RIM said – they said 10.6 – 11.1 million devices which would represent 5-10% sequential growth, which includes a compare to Black Friday. I guess the market’s reaction is totally wrong too?
People on this blog are a joke when it comes to anything non-Apple. You guys don’t have a clue about RIM.
There are no free Blackberries here folks. Any Blackberry still requires a data plan, carrier gets 2 data plans (what they want) and RIM gets sales on both devices. They also clear out inventory.
Considering the bulk of this is consumers and 2010 is likely to see corporate spending / upgrading return RIM will be fine. Apple is the one under pressure.
– Needs to get cross carrier in the states ASAP
– Leaving at&t;will mean losing that nice fat subsidy they enjoy
– Improve iPhone. Putting out a larger capacity or colors isn’t going to cut it.
Apple will always kill RIM due to they have a much larger product line. RIM is selling a ton of smartphones, a large % is international where the device cost is much lower then Apple. I’d love to see Apple break out the US sales figures. You won’t see that though.
If RIM can get their webkit browser out by summer and continue this the lure of being with iPhone will be limited to those that like being tied to the iTunes ecosystem. Choice is a good thing.
The 4.4 mil new to BB is impressive, but only 36 mil active accounts? That means more than half of BBs sold aren’t being used.
Hasn’t Apple sold over 60 mil iPhone/touches? How many of those are “active?” Pretty close to 100% I would think.
In North America RIM will keep harvesting all the people who have been turned on to the idea of a smartphone by the iPhone but who can’t leave their verizon, sprint or t-mobile plans. I’ll wager there are another 30 million customers in this category – those poor souls bound to be drawn down below the RIM.
@come on!
You said:
“You can talk all the trash you want about marketing offers (incidentally, those are created by the CARRIER not RIM and RIM gets full price for each of those)”
Just curious.
How do you know RIM gets full price in 2 for 1 deals?
How do you know RIM doesn’t give the carrier(s) cash incentives in connection with 2 for 1 sales?
Can you site the authority for that conclusion?
@Zmarc
it’s called an upgrade – rim has been selling blackberries for 10 years! the iphone has only been in existence for 2 1/2 years. this is common sense…
@Macrelated
the proof? there’s the earnings call where RIM states the ASP per device was $317 – as forecasted. There will also be a filing in both Canadian and US regulatory bodies that has this information as well. This is inline with the company’s own guidance. If they were giving cash incentives, which is a reduction in ACTUAL sales price, they would be required using proper accounting, to subtract that from the device sale. SO, it’s right out there in the open, as forecasted by RIM. DO you need more proof?
You really can’t be asking this question in a serious manner – but I am happy to answer in a serious manner to educate you. Simple research would answer the question though. Next time do some homework first.
The best part is these comments are taken as attacks yet Apple will continue to do quite well even as RIM executes their own strategy.
UPDATE 2:41PM ET:Research In Motion has issued a statement confirming the email outage, although without an explanation of why email service had been interrupted.
I know this update is old news, however Twitter reveals that many places around the country, at this hour, are still experiencing trouble with email.
This kind of thing can’t be good for RIM’s image. The last time there was an outage, RIM never explained the cause and it isn’t likely we’ll hear an explanation for this one either.
However, this time they’ve taken full responsibility for the outage and said the carriers are not at fault. So, it’s something RIM is doing, or not doing, that is causing these problems.
That’s odd, because as has been stated already, RIMs been selling BBs for ten years and yet they can’t seem to overcome their inadequacies.
Consumerism is a whole ‘nuther ballgame, as opposed to corporatism.
Just sayin’…
In an article in Fortune recently, RIMM actually thanked Apple for getting the consumers to accept smartphones as a consumer products, and credited iPhone for the growing sales of the Blackberry!
While RIM is showing good numbers and they have a good product, lets not lose sight of the fact that RIM is showing numbers of handsets shipped.
They shipped 10.1 Blackberry units.
There is no mention of how many units were sold. No mention of how many were left on the shelves.
There is one other stat missing.
THERE IS NO MENTION OF HOW MANY OF THOSE UNITS WERE ACTUAL SMART PHONES.
How many had a decent screen size? How many had WiFi? How many had the power to run sophisticated programs? How many were just cheap, texting capable, cell phones?
There are lies, damn lies and statistics.