Crack is Back: $RIMM Smashes Earnings Expectations

Research In Motion beats by $0.19, beats on revs  (7.14 +0.14)

Reports Q2 (Aug) loss of $0.27 per share, $0.19 better than the Capital IQ Consensus Estimate of ($0.46); revenues fell 31.1% year/year to $2.87 bln vs the $2.5 bln consensus.

— RIMM reports Q2 gross margins of 26.0%; Street expectations 28.4%, Q1 28.0%.

— BlackBerry subscriber base increased to approximately 80 million global subscribers.

— Cash, cash equivalents, short-term and long-term investments increased by approximately $100 million to $2.3 billion at the end of the second quarter

— Cash flow from operations was approximately $432 million in the second quarter.

— Shipments of BlackBerry smartphones were 7.4 million and shipments of BlackBerry PlayBook tablets were approximately 130,000.

“Despite the significant changes we are implementing across the organization, our second quarter results demonstrate that RIM is progressing on its financial and operational commitments during this major transition,” said Thorsten Heins, President and CEO. “Subscribers grew to approximately 80 million global users, revenue grew sequentially from the first quarter, cash, cash equivalents, short-term and long-term investments increased by approximately $100 million to $2.3 billion, and carriers and developers are responding well to previews of our upcoming BlackBerry 10 platform. Make no mistake about it, we understand that we have much more work to do, but we are making the organizational changes to drive improvements across the company, our employees are committed and motivated, and BlackBerry 10 is on track to launch in the first calendar quarter of 2013.”