Research in Motion released its third quarter 2013 financials Thursday, reporting $2.7 billion in revenue while losing $114 million. Net profit for the struggling company sat at $14 million, thanks largely to a $166 million tax settlement.
Revenue was down 5 percent from $2.9 billion the previous quarter and 47 percent from $5.2 billion in the quarter the year before. The year previous, RIM picked up profit of $265 million.
RIM managed to ship 6.9 million BlackBerry smartphones with about 255,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets hitting the streets as well.
Subscribers dipped by 1 million, dropping to 79 million users.
A bumpy ride
CEO Thorstein Heins had warned investors quarters around and even after the release of BlackBerry 10 would be difficult.
"[RIM] expects that there will be continued pressure on operating results as it gets set to launch its BlackBerry 10 platform in the third quarter," a company press release stated.
To alleviate some of that pressure, RIM is looking at pricing initiatives on BlackBerry 7 devices and service fees in some markets "as a way to maintain our subscriber base and drive more BlackBerry users," according to the release.
Marketing spending will go up in the next quarter, RIM said, which is certainly good for the BB10 push but serves as a warning to investors that profits might not rise for awhile. It anticipates posting an operating loss for Q4 2013, the quarter BB10 hits the market.
Source : techradar[dot]com
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