MacDailyNews Take: Verizon’s “Buy One BlackBerry, Get One Free” has been artificially padding RIM’s U.S. numbers for multiple quarters.
Electronista reports, “Despite selling a record 11.2 million BlackBerries in its last quarter, its sales revenue outside of the US fell 1.4 percent overall. Its performance in the US was mostly propped up by the launch of the Bold 9650 and Buy One Get One deals like those at Verizon that guaranteed two units sold for the price of one.”
Electronista reports, “Some of the steepest declines were in countries that are normally safe. UK revenue dropped 3.7 percent in the spring; even in RIM’s home country of Canada, revenue was down 3.3 percent.”
Read more in the full article here.
Why does that name sound so dirty?
Rim is all aboot productivity eh.
because they shipped the most devices, added the most new subscribers, had the highest revenue, and had the highest profit in the company’s history. And their expectations for next quarter were even higher. All of this in a quarter where they shipped two minor upgrades late and nothing else new. strange that revenue is “down in most markets” yet they had record sales.
“strange that revenue is “down in most markets” yet they had record sales.”
Not strange if you sell each unit at a loss. “Sales” often refers to units, whereas revenue is…um, money.
@ weird
Looks like another Dell. Huge sales, not much profit. That’s the trouble, without profit you are out of business. Are they studying Michael Dell at McGill business school?
I wonder what people do with their free Blackberry.
“Yes, we lose money on each sale, but we’ll make up for it with volume!”
@silverhawk – No, at University of Waterloo.
While we’re on the subject of Blackberry, did you notice that at market close today that Apple is now worth 32 BILLION more than Microsoft?
Oh…. wrong subject. Oh well.
There is only one thing to do to fix this. It is time for the “Buy 1 get 3 (or 5) Free!”
It is all about the market share then they close the doors for good!
Mike Dell, how are those netbooks selling? The iPads have a 7 to 10 day backlog. Time to do a buy a Dell get second Dell free! That will keep your numbers up too!
This turd is doomed, like that asshat Hussein
Remember this is profit not units. The have put a record number of units into people’s hands. Don’t forget brand loyalty. I do know Crackberry users have one because…they always have had one. This is why companies have ‘promotions’ lest we forget.
I for one hope RIM stays healthy if just to keep Apple vibrant with the competition. Everyone wins. Death to the other smartphones though.
let’s be reasonable.
Apple experienced an actual decline in sales from the holiday season to the first quarter (down about 10%) – something that happens every year, and people understand why.
Yet when RIM actually increases sales from the holiday quarter to the next (RIM fiscal year is weird, so last quarter was dec through feb, which included the holiday selling season. this quarter just reported was mar through may) there is celebration in apple-land. that is the classic double standard.
How can you say that when they earned over $750 mln in profit, the highest profit for this company ever, and generated over $1.1 billion in cash flow? That is just plain dumb, especially when their profit margin was 45%, yes profit margin.
How does this add up to selling units at a loss? When will people wake up to the fact that the carrier promotes the devices with BOGO offers and the vendor gets paid in full for both units. I’m all for Apple’s success, but that doesn’t mean it’s ok to be an idiot.
Let’s give credit where credit is due: RIM made an excellent result, listen folks..we no longer have to bash other companies doing well for Apple to do well..we are past and beyond that by now, Apple is in a league of it’s own.
Apple has ascended to a higher level of existence
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whomever @silverhawk, @spark
Show me where everything you say is stated. Which RIMM website, newspaper, or analysis.
I think it’s premature to start declaring RIM in any sort of trouble. Quite why this is pertinent news is anyone’s guess.
MDN just likes to publish every scrap of ‘bad’ news for any of Apple’s competition, regardless of the merit of the piece.
Woe betide anyone who does the same to Apple.
RIMM Job! They will be totally irrelevant in 10 years or less.
seriously?
http://www.rim.com/investors/documents/pdf/financial/2011/Q1_financial_information.pdf
it is all there plain as day. they earned $768 million in the quarter on revenue $4.24 billion, or net profit margin of 18%. Gross profit margin was over 45%.
Do you know DELL has net profit margins of just over 2% and gross profit margins of 17%? Now that’s a terrible business – absolutely not comparable to RIM.
what electronista doesn’t tell you is that RIM only breaks out 4 segments for revenue (US,UK,Canada, and other) – the other category grew 100% since last year from $700 mln to 1.4 bln, or from 22% to 34% of revenue. Clearly Electronista is cherry picking data, and MDN runs with is blindly as it suits their holy war against anything non-apple. 10 minutes of research and some common sense goes a long way! ok, your lesson is over.
MDN, care to do some fact checking before you post a story? The SEC filing shows that the opposite of what Electronista claims is true:
– US sales are down 10 %
– Rest of the world is up 90 %
And why is that? In the US Android is taking over RIM’s place as the iPhone alternative. In emerging markets Blackberry is currently the most affordable quality smartphone, at a $300 price vs $600 for the iPhone (before subsidies). Sure wish Apple had a $400 or $300 smartphone… Maybe next year.
RIMM…where is your real touchscreen product???
Are you resting on your laurels or your thumbs or what??
Do you really think people still need real buttons taking real estate?
They thought they needed floppies, too.
Where is your real app store?
What happened, RIMM??????
You’re getting swallowed, so swallow your pride.
High numbers in peoples hands only because of two for one discount specials. People want real touchscreen app-rich modern day smartphones.