WATERLOO, Ontario—Research In Motion Ltd. posted results largely in-line with analyst expectations, with a net income for the quarter of $18.4 million, but investors appeared fatigued of the BlackBerry maker—which recently settled its long-running legal dispute with patent-holding company NTP Inc.—and sent the company’s stock down around 4 percent to $81.82 per share in trading after the news.
RIM recently settled its battle with NTP for $612.5 million, and the company took a $162.5 million charge in the quarter to pay off the remainder of the settlement. The payoff left RIM with revenues in the quarter of $561.2 million, up 39 percent from the $404.8 million the company earned in the same quarter of last year. In the year-ago quarter RIM posted a net loss of $2.6 million.
RIM’s subscriber additions were lower than the company had hoped, primarily because potential customers had been scared off by the BlackBerry maker’s legal troubles. RIM reported the addition of 625,000 new BlackBerry subscribers, which gives the company a total worldwide subscriber base of over 5 million.
“We have seen a recovery in subscriber additions and business momentum since RIM settled the patent litigation,” said Dennis Kavelman, chief financial officer at RIM. “We have been very encouraged by the increasingly positive indications from customers and partners over the past several weeks, but we also believe it is important to remain prudent in our outlook as we continue to monitor and foster the post-settlement momentum throughout Q1 and Q2.”
RIM ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $1.25 billion, down from the $1.6 billion the company had at the end of the previous quarter—primarily due to the company’s settlement with NTP.
