Shares of Research In Motion Ltd. jumped Thursday morning after the company reported strong third-quarter sales of its BlackBerry devices.
RIM reported $560 million in revenue during the period, up 53 percent from last year’s third-quarter revenue of $366 million. Third-quarter diluted per-share earnings increased from 46 cents in 2004 to 61 cents this year.
The company said it shipped 1.1 million handhelds during the quarter, accounting for more than one-third of the 2.9 million devices shipped so far this year. RIM said it drew 70 percent of its third-quarter revenue from device sales.
Investors sent shares skyward following the report, which was issued after Wednesday’s closing bell. RIM shares bounded nearly 10 percent, trading at $67.57 during mid-day activity on the Nasdaq.
But the company cited its ongoing legal battle with NTP Inc. as it trimmed subscriber-growth forecasts for the fourth quarter. While it confirmed previous fourth-quarter revenue guidance of $590 million to $620 million, it said it now expects to add 700,000 to 750,000 new subscribers-down from an earlier forecast of between 752,000 and 800,000.
The lowered estimate confirms analyst speculation that users are shying away from the BlackBerry service due to a potential service shutdown should the court decide to enforce NTP’s injunction. But RIM remains hopeful the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office makes the case moot: the PTO already has issued preliminary rejections of the four patents remaining at the heart of the case, and the office has vowed to accelerate its final review of the patents.
“Let the system work,” RIM co-Chief Executive Officer Jim Balsillie implored in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. “Let the USPTO do its job and determine whether NTP’s claims are sound or not.”
Presiding Judge James Spencer of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, though, may not be so accommodating. Three weeks ago, Spencer denied RIM’s request to stop the case pending the PTO’s review, and he has since given both sides until Feb. 1 to file briefs in the case. And even if the PTO ultimately rejected all four patents, NTP could appeal the case to a PTO board and then to a federal circuit court of appeals.
“Reality and past experience dictate that several years might very well pass from the time when a final office action is issued by the PTO to when the claims are finally and officially `confirmed’ under appeals,” Spencer wrote.
