UPDATED 11:42 EDT / NOVEMBER 21 2011

NEWS

RIM Outlook Revised after Outages and Stalled Sales for PlayBook and BlackBerry 7

A once bullish analyst for RBC Capital Markets has lowered fiscal third-quarter estimates for Research in Motion due to stalled sales for the Blackberry 7 and the Playbook.

According to the Boy Genius Report (BGR), sales had initially shown strength as subscribers showed interest in upgrading to the new smartphones. But now sales are slowing as demand picks up for the iPhone, iPad and Android devices.

RBC Capital Markets Analyst Mike Abramsky said sales are slowing. Outages have compounded the slowdown as have Playbook delays.

Apple sold four million of the iPhone 4s in its first weekend. Sprint said the iPhone 4S had its best first-day sales ever. Last week, Google said there are now more than 200 million Android devices that have been activated.

The ramifications for RIM are tremendous. According to BGR, Abramsky says that unless sales surge, RIM may not meet its earnings per share estimates.

BGR:

RBC is lowering its fiscal third-quarter revenue estimate to $5.3 billion from $5.4 billion, and it now sees RIM’s earnings coming in at $1.20 per share, down from $1.28. For the full fiscal year, Abramsky now estimates that RIM’s revenue will slide in at $19.8 billion, down from $20.1 billion, and his earnings projections were lowered as well to $4.68 per share. Finally, the analyst lowered his price target for RIM stock to $23 from an earlier target of $29.

RIM’s troubles have impacts in the services ecosystem, in particular for the large technology vendors that have put its development resources behind the Blackerry and Playbook devices. In particular, SAP comes to mind. The company recently launched a mobile apps store that has a focus on Blackberry devices.


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