Analysts anticipated another miss ahead of Research In Motion’s
first-quarter earnings report on Thursday as sales continue to stall
ahead of the struggling smartphone vendor’s first BlackBerry 10 smartphone launch, which is expected this October. RIM warned in late May that it would likely see an operating loss in the first fiscal quarter —
its first net quarterly loss since fiscal 2004 — but the Street’s
consensus ranged from a profit of $0.01 per share on $3.1 billion in
sales to a net loss of $0.03 per share. The numbers are now in and RIM
reported on Thursday that it lost $0.37 per share on revenue of $2.8
billion.
The company said that it plans to cut an additional 5,000 jobs beyond
its most recent round of layoffs, and these new efforts will cost the
company $300 million. Despite this new round of cost-cutting efforts,
the company said it expects to report an operating loss in the fiscal
second quarter as well.
To compound matters, unexpected delays will push the launch of RIM’s
first BlackBerry 10 smartphone back to the first calendar quarter of
2013. RIM previously said the first handset to run its next-generation
OS would be released later this year.
