Research In Motion Limited (NASDAQ: RIMM) said late Thursday that its fiscal first quarter profit dropped to $695 million, or $1.33 per share, from $769 million, or $1.38 per share, in the year-earlier quarter. Revenue increased 16% to $4.9 billion from $4.24 billion.Analysts, on average, expected the company to report earnings of $1.32 per share on revenue of $5.15 billion. uring the quarter, RIM shipped approximately 13.2 million BlackBerry handheld devices and approximately 500,000 BlackBerry Playbook tablets.
"Fiscal 2012 has gotten off to a challenging start. The slowdown we saw in the first quarter is continuing into Q2, and delays in new product introductions into the very late part of August is leading to a lower than expected outlook in the second quarter." said Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO at Research In Motion. "RIM's business is profitable and remains solid overall with growing market share in numerous markets around the world and a strong balance sheet with almost $3 billion in cash. We believe that with the new products scheduled for launch in the next few months and realigning our cost structure, RIM will see strong profit growth in the latter part of fiscal 2012."
Revenue for the second quarter of fiscal 2012 ending August 27, 2011 is expected to be in the range of $4.2-$4.8 billion. Gross margin percentage for the second quarter is expected to be approximately 39%. Earnings per share for the second quarter are expected to be $0.75-$1.05 diluted, excluding any one-time charges.
The company slashed its full-year EPS forecast range to $5.25 to $6 per share; it had previously expected earnings of $7.50 per share for the period. The company also said it plans to cut an unspecified number of jobs and will buy back up to 5% of its outstanding shares.
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