RIM doubles revenue and profit, but disappoints Wall Street

Research In Motion Ltd. doubled its fiscal first quarter revenue and net income over the year-ago quarter, sold 5.4 million devices and added 2.3 million new subscribers. RIM’s fiscal first quarter ended May 31.
Not good enough for Wall Street, however.
RIM’s stock dipped nearly 8% in after-hours trading on Wednesday after the BlackBerry vendor’s earnings missed Wall Street’s consensus and its outlook also failed to excite investors. Today the stock sank more than 12%.
RIM executives said that in the fiscal second quarter, ending August 30, revenue is forecast in the range of $2.55 billion to $2.65 billion, with net subscriber additions of about 2.6 million.
According to UBS analyst Maynard Um, RIM’s solid revenue was offset by higher than anticipated operating expenses, with slightly lighter unit sales – 2.4 million vs. UBS’ forecast for 2.54 million – and operating margins than expected. RIM’s earnings per share guidance was below UBS’ expectations for the fiscal second quarter, due to the “surprising magnitude” of the company’s op-ex spending.
“Our view … has not changed,” Um wrote to investors in a note. “We believe the company is investing to become a much more significant player in the handset market. Though it appears to be at the expense of near-term earnings, we expect the benefits to start to materialize this fiscal year.”
“We would view any weakness in the stock as an opportunity,” Um added.
Um said he expected the BlackBerry Bold, a 3G handset, to ship in July, with a clamshell-style BlackBerry and another iteration of the Curve (named Javelin) to ship in November, followed by a touchscreen BlackBerry and an iDEN BlackBerry by year’s end.