It’s been bad news on top of bad news for the fabled maker of the Blackberry, Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ:RIMM). After the market close yesterday, the company reporting earnings per share of $0.80. Analysts were expected $0.89 per share – a difference of about $47 million.
Investors have punished the stock in trading today pushing shares down 20 percent.
“I think RIM is very much at a tipping point here,” Jennifer Fritzsche, a former analyst at First Union Corp., told Bloomberg in a television interview. “(This) is the first year-over-year decline in shipments we’ve ever seen from this company. For a growth industry, that’s very atypical.”
Interviewers at Bloomberg asked Fritzsche bluntly if they thought RIM would be in business two years from now. “I think there’s a place for RIM,” she said. “But the biggest issue I have is how they’re going to be able to support essentially two operating systems: Blackberry 7 and the new system that they continue to allude to (QNX) coming possibly early next year.”
Two competing operating systems could alienate outside developers, which are essential for offering consumers a wide range of third-party apps. From games to productivity software, the availability of apps can influence consumer decisions when they’re picking out a phone. That’s part of what has made Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone so successful, and it’s becoming harder and harder for new operating systems to compete with thriving app marketplace for the iOS and Google’s (GOOG) Android.
Revenue plummeted 10 percent at RIM on sluggish sales of smartphones and tablets. Indeed, the company shipped just 10.6 million phones and 200,000 tablets. Analysts had expected the company to ship 11.8 million phones and more than half a million tablets.
Of course, much of the problem with RIM’s tablet – the PlayBook – stems from the fact that it just didn’t feel complete when it was launched. The tablet doesn’t have built-in email, calendar or contacts software, and it doesn’t run outside apps like Netflix.
Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis says that will all change next month when RIM pushes out a software update. Users will then be able to install Android apps on their PlayBooks, and that might be enough to give sales a big bump.
Still, some worry that the company’s losing relevance in a world increasingly dominated by Apple and Google. “RIM is on a path to becoming a niche player,” Ted Schadler, an analyst for Forrester Research Inc., told Bloomberg. “It has to focus on what about its products make them different or better than Apple or Google products.”
A niche player can still make money, but it’s not going to give investors outsize gains. That’s why RIM’s shares are down more than 58 percent YTD. If the company can stop shedding marketshare in the months to come, it could very well start looking like a value play. In fact, shares are currently trading at a P/E of just 3.8! Compare that to Google’s 19.6 and Apple’s 15.8. RIM just needs a product that looks ahead, not one that’s hastily thrown to market like the PlayBook.
The company has an air of panic about it right now, and that’s got investors panicking, too. If we all take a deep breath, though, it’s clear the RIM story isn’t over yet. The company still has the third most popular smartphone in the country, and it’s generating sales of more than $4 billion a quarter. They need a Hail Mary to stay afloat, but they’ve done it in the past, and I wouldn’t count them down and out quite yet.
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