Revenue rockets for RIM
Hand-held vendor sees massive increase despite legal battles
Research In Motion Limited (RIM) has doubled its annual turnover despite a year of patent battles with NTP.
RIM settled with NTP after making a one-off payment of $612.5m in March. The vendor's fiscal 2006 turnover rocketed 53 per cent from $1.35b last year to $2.07bn.
Revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2006 was $561.2m, up 39 per cent from $404.8m in the same quarter of last year. Revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2007 is expected to be in the range of $580 to $610m.
The revenue breakdown for the quarter was approximately 70 per cent for hand-helds, 21 per cent for service, five per cent for software and four per cent for other revenue. Total handheld devices shipped in the quarter were approximately 1.1m, and a total of approximately four million hand-held devices were shipped during fiscal 2006.
Jim Balsillie, chairman and co-chief executive at RIM, said: "We recently passed the $2bn annual revenue and five million subscribers milestones and we have begun the new fiscal year with over 150 carrier partners around the world. Our strong market position together with our continuing technology leadership and our unique ability to provide customers and partners with a comprehensive wireless solution presents great opportunity for RIM in the new fiscal year."