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RIM sees FY12 sales drop 7% to $18.4 billion, also posts a Q4 loss of $125 million

CEO Heins triggers review of strategic opportunities

RIM sees FY12 sales drop 7% to $18.4 billion, also posts a Q4 loss of $125 million
Research in Motion (TSE:RIM) has announced its FY2012 results for the 12 months ending 3 March, 2012.

Revenue was $18.4 billion, down 7 percent year-on-year.

Net income was $1.2 billion, down 65 percent.

During the period, RIM booked pre-tax charges of $54 million due to a service interruption and $485 million due to PlayBook inventory costs during Q3, and $125 million from its cost optimisation program in Q2.

During the quarter RIM shipped 11.1 million BlackBerry smartphones and over 500,000 PlayBook tablets.

It now has over 77 million subscribers, up from 75 million three months ago.

A long hard look

"I have assessed many aspects of RIM's business during my first 10 weeks as CEO. I have confirmed that the company has substantial strengths that can be further leveraged to improve our financial performance," said new CEO Thorsten Heins.

He highlighted its strong enterprise offering, global network infrastructure and the potential for its BlackBerry 10 platform and devices.

However given the company's Q4 losses and heavily declining annual profits, he said greater operational performance was necessary, especially over the next couple of quarters.

"In parallel, we are undertaking a comprehensive review of strategic opportunities, including partnership and joint ventures, licensing and other ways to leverage RIM's assets and maximize value for our stakeholders," he added.

RIM was recently linked to investment and an OS licensing deal from Samsung.

Bad quarter

Q4 revenue was $4.2 billion, down 25 percent year-on-year.

More significantly, RIM made a loss of $125 million, compared to net income of $934 million a year ago.

68 percent of its Q4 revenue came from hardware, 27 percent from services and 5 percent from software and other revenue.

All figures are stated under US generally accepted accounting principles.

The company ended the period with $2.1 billion in cash, cash equivalents, short and long-term investments, up $610 million from its Q3 position.

RIM also generated $1.1 billion of cash from operations during its Q4.

[source: RIM (PDF)]
Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.