RIM posted some solid earnings after a rough quarter last time. Here is the earnings call transcript. Note that for some reason they have labeled it Fiscal quarter 2 for RIM but this is Q3 FY10 for RIM.
Some key stats: RIM shipped 10.1 million devices and added4.4 million new subscribers, claiming 16% QoQ growth.
80% of new subscribers were "consumer", meaning they were not associated with a BES server.
There continue to be some worrying trends for RIM within these numbers.
First, their net new adds relative to devices shipped is quite low. That looks like only 44% of devices shipped went to new customers? On the one hand it's great to show customer retention and upsell but on the other hand with the biggest channel partners heavily marketing 2-for-1 deals I think it's a real problem if this has indeed slipped below the 50% threshold. Everyone will be comparing Blackberries shipped to iPhones but the huge difference to keep in mind is that RIM is bringing 4.4M new subs in while Apple is doubling that.
And just to really nitpick, RIM didn't sell 10.1M devices. They shipped that many and sold about 9M data-enabled devices and less than half of those to new subscribers. It's a very healthy quarter but that is not kicking Apple's ass.
Secondly, RIM's Edel Ebbs stated that they "don't break out" international subscribers. Well, they did across all quarters in 2006, 2007, and 2008. Suddenly last quarter they stopped. There are few reasons to stop reporting that and none of them are positive ones for RIM. The WSJ is reporting international growth "at 37% of overall revenue, up from 30% the previous quarter". RIM's share of subs who were international had been slowly climbing from 25% to 35% so if the WSJ is right in their numbers they are wrong in their assessment that WW growth is driving RIM. I think Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and the two big UK operators are driving RIM growth and the rest is ticking over at the same rate. Still upward, and still good, but at a flat rate of growth.
Third, the Flip Pearl sure seems MIA. For a company rapidly reaching downmarket to lower ASPs and youth/consumer segments it's interesting that their first departure from the standard form factor seems to be a dud.
A really positive factor to watch is RIM's tiered pricing: "As we discussed during RIM's capital market day in May, we are continuing to implement service price tiering strategies to further segment the market for BlackBerry products and services. For example, [Telecom Sao] Indonesia, in addition to its full BIS offering, also offers the lower priced version of BIS that gives the customer a more limited feature set that includes only IM and texting for the equivalent of about $7 a month."
Carriers and service providers should notice and learn from this. In the Q&A portion the meaning of tiered pricing was misinterpreted, which Balsille didn't correct, showing that this is really going under the radar.
RIM also promised to "deliver a web kit browser during calendar 2010". Amen!