WATERLOO, ON – About 2.18 million net new BlackBerry subscriber accounts were added in the fourth quarter ended March 1, said Research In Motion Limited (RIM) in financial results released April 2. RIM, the company that invented the handheld wireless device, reported a total of 14 million BlackBerry subscribers at the end of the fourth quarter.
RIM also shipped 4.4 million smartphones in the fourth quarter and approximately 14 million smartphones during fiscal 2008.
Net income for the fourth quarter was US $412.5 million, compared with net income of US $370.5 million in the prior quarter and net income of US $187.4 million in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008 was US $1.88 billion, up 102% from US $930.4 million in the same quarter of last year. The revenue breakdown for the quarter was approximately 81% for handhelds, 14% for service, 3% for software and 2% for other revenue.
“Heightened retail activities helped drive exceptional subscriber growth during the fourth quarter with net subscriber account additions growing more than 32% over the previous quarter and well over 2 million net subscriber accounts added in a single quarter for the first time,” said RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie in a statement.
RIM indicated that revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2009 ending May 31, 2008 is expected to be between US $2.23 and US $2.30 billion. Net subscriber account additions in the first quarter are predicted to be about 2.2 million.
For the entire fiscal year 2008 ended March 31, net income was US $1.29 billion, up 105% over fiscal 2007. Revenue for the fiscal year ended March 1, 2008 was US $6.01 billion, up 98% from $3.04 billion last year.
