On Thursday, Research In Motion Limited (USA) (NASDAQ:RIMM)? will be releasing its results for its fourth quarter and full fiscal year. As usual, Wall Street is getting ready for another disappointing report. Research in Motion gave a worse than expected fourth quarter guidance which now is causing analysts to lower all their expectations for RIM.
There is really nothing to look forward to. We know that Blackberry 7 sales have not lived up to the hype so far. With no products that really matter, how can we expect anything other than a loss from RIM?
The only glimmer of hope that RIM has is that the firm will be releasing its Blackberry 10 next-gen smartphone. However, it is unclear as to how good the phone is and how well customers will react to it. Other than that, the Blackberry maker continues to lose share to rivals Apple and Google.
Wall Street is expecting RIM to post fourth quarter revenue of $4.55 billion with an earnings per share of $0.82. However, there are quite a few analysts that are projecting the company to release even worse numbers.
The analysts are right to downgrade RIM even further. The company does not listen to the consumer. Management has repeatedly failed at reviving the Blackberry and the company and it appears that there is no end in sight. Investors backing the firm say that the Blackberry 10 will usher in a new era of Blackberry dominance that Research in Motion once had. However, I don’t buy it because the Blackberry 7 was supposed to be good to and look at it now, no one is buying it. There will come a point that they will either fail or be bought out if they continue to sit there and produce no results.
Research in Motion is still in “iPhone shock” because the firm has not made any decent phones since Apple came into the market and began to take sales from the Blackberry. Then came the Android phones which further took share away from the Blackberry and here we are.
The Blackberry began the smartphone revolution but they cut out just before the things got really good. They failed to adapt to competitors and the new features that were begin put in the smartphones. Years later, management has released quite a few phones that just have been dives and now once again we sit and wait to see what this Blackberry 10 is going to be like and how it could make or break RIM.
