Canada’s Research in Motion Ltd (RIM), maker of the popular BlackBerry smartphone, reported a quarterly net profit on Thursday in line with the expectations of analysts and stronger-than-expected revenue growth.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM reported a net profit of US$396.3 million in the quarter ending last month, up slightly more than 7 percent from the third quarter last year.
Despite the economic slowdown, revenue soared to US$2.78 billion in the period, up 66 percent from a year earlier, RIM said in a statement, mostly due to 2.6 million new Blackberry subscribers.
The company said it shipped 6.7 million devices in the quarter.
“We are pleased to report record revenue results for the third quarter and we have entered the fourth quarter with strong momentum despite the challenging general economic conditions,” co-chief executive Jim Balsillie said.
“In fact we have enjoyed our best-ever start to the holiday buying season over the past few weeks,” Balsillie said in a statement.
“RIM launched an unprecedented number of BlackBerry smartphones in the third quarter and these new products are being adopted at an even faster pace than we expected,” he said.
“Our industry leading product portfolio is positioned well to capitalize on the increasing market opportunity in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 and beyond,” Balsillie said.
RIM released its first touch-screen smartphone, the Blackberry Storm, during the quarter and a new version of its Blackberry Pearl.
RIM’s results were eagerly anticipated by analysts as a bellwether for the highly competitive cellphone market in a slow economy.
The firm forecast fourth-quarter revenue of between US$3.3 billion and US$3.5 billion with earnings per share between US$0.83 and US$0.91 based on a gross margin of between 40 percent and 41 percent.
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