“Seeing a threat from Apple‘s iMessage instant messaging service, Morgan Keegan analyst Tavis McCourt this morning cut his rating on Research in Motion shares to Market Perform from Outperform, while chopping his price target on the stock to $49, from $71,” Eric Savitz blogs for Forbes.
“‘Although mobile IM applications have existed for many years, none really gained traction as an ecosystem besides BBM due to the substantial investment needed to support the platform,’ he writes, noting that BBM has over 40 million users globally ‘and is one of the key’s to RIMM’s success outside the U.S.’ McCourt cut his FY 20120 EPS estimate to $6.14 from $6.23 in an effort to ‘take a stab at the competitive impact’ of iMessage, which includes features like encryption, read/delivery receipts, typing notifications, group messaging, and support for multimedia files,” Savitz reports.
Read more in the full article here.
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