RIM Beats Expectations With $10 Million Loss

Research In Motion

The company's revenue was $71.6 million, a drop of 7 percent from $77 million during the year-ago quarter. Revenue increased 8 percent from $66 million in the previous quarter, however.

RIM's earnings beat analysts' expectations of a 19-cent-per-share loss, according to estimates from First Call/Thompson Financial. A RIM forecast in April projected that the company would report a loss of 18 cents to 22 cents per share on revenue of about $70 million.

Products from RIM have come under increased pressure as handheld makers such as Palm, Handspring and PocketPC vendors have begun to offer RIM-type messaging services on traditional handhelds. In addition, start-ups such as Good Technology are attempting to encroach on the wireless services and products vendor's market.

RIM said revenue breakdown for the quarter was 39 percent for handheld products, 41 percent for its e-mail and messaging service, 13 percent for software licenses and development, and 7 percent for OEM radios and other revenue. Cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities were $616 million as of June 1, compared with $644.6 million for the previous quarter.

Among RIM's product announcement's in the first quarter were the BlackBerry 5810, a wireless handheld for GPS and GPRS networks in North America, and a BlackBerry development environment for J2ME. The company also unveiled plans to add an enterprise server feature that will support wireless access to back-end data.

"Together with our partners, we are delivering the 2.5G devices, services tools, applications and infrastructure to provide broadly adaptable solutions that solve real customer problems and offer substantial return on investment," said Jim Balsillie, chairman and co-CEO of RIM.