The Canadian mobile device maker Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) (TSE:RIM) has seen its stock jump today after one of its upcoming Blackberry 10 phones was leaked earlier this week on the site crackberry.com. Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) (TSE:RIM) has said that the device will launch following a launch event on January 30th. The actual release date has not yet been released.
Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) (TSE:RIM) stock rose 14% in today’s trading. Optimism regarding the proximity of the next generation phone’s launch appears to be the most compelling reason for the upswing in the stock, but other reasons may emerge. The company’s stock price has suffered in recent months as investors worried about the firm’s future.
Research In Motion failed to keep up recent innovations in smart phone technology and lost huge amounts of market share to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), and manufacturers using the Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)’s Android operating system. Fans of the company’s products eagerly await the release of the new smart phones.
Today’s high stock prices hit levels that have not been seen since last May. Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) (TSE:RIM) stock hit a high of 11.86 earlier today. It now sits around 11.60. A full background to the sudden hike in price has not yet been established.
Earlier this week, an analyst from Jeffco set a twelve month price target of $43 for the firm. That would be an increase of 300%, a reasonable return on any yearlong investment were it to pan out. The analysts’ voices are, in general, unified on Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) (TSE:RIM). Everything turns on the launch of the BB10 range of smart phones.
Some critics have given huge amounts of praise to the new operating system, and the new handsets appear to be welcoming the same. The fact that nobody has used anything close to a finished product yet does give pause however.
It looks like there is room in the mobile device market for a third, and possibly a fourth, ecosystem. Windows 8, pioneered by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), has a head start on Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) (TSE:RIM), but holiday sales will be the key indicator of that system’s future. Blackberry fans, and RIM investors will have to wait until at least February to see where their ecosystem is going, and it will be months after that before any real sales projections will be possible.
Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM) (TSE:RIM) has a tough time ahead. Today’s rally shows that there are some investors out there willing to buy the company and take the risk on BB10. Whether or not it pans out is a questioning weighted heavily around the necks of the engineers at RIM, and of course the firm’s shareholders.
