Blackberry Maker RIM Reports Losses Despite Increased Cash Reserves

Research in Motion (RIM) has been struggling to keep up with its smartphone rivals Apple and Samsung. Apple reported a profit of $7.3 billion for the last quarter and Samsung is expected to announce profits in the region of $6.7 billion for the same quarter.

In contrast, RIM lost £145 million in the last quarter alone. However, their cash reserves have increased to $2.3 billion from $2.2 billion last quarter.

The £145 million loss was smaller than anticipated and considerably smaller than their £321 million loss from last quarter. This less-than-expected loss has sent the troubled company’s share price up by 18%.

This will be small consolation to long-term shareholders, who have seen the value of their shares drop by 70% in the last 12 months.

American technology analyst Rob Enderle believes that the Blackberry 10 is RIM’s only hope of recovery. He said that the Blackberry’s advantage is its popularity with business users. In his opinion, business users are wary of Samsung’s Android smartphone as a result of past security issues.

However, Apple’s iPhone is still incredibly popular with business as well as domestic customers. Enderle also believes that Windows Phone 8 will be strong competition for the Blackberry 10. Like the Blackberry, Windows Phone is primarily targeted at business users.

The Blackberry 10 launch had been scheduled for the end of this year but was pushed back to the beginning of 2013. The delay was announced in June in the wake of RIM making 5,000 of its staff redundant.

RIM hope to boost revenue by aggressively pushing the Blackberry 7 until the launch of the Blackberry 10.