Research in Motion today issued a business update that confirms a grim future for the company during its transition to BlackBerry 10. It revealed that it expects to report a quarterly loss for its current quarter due as an “on-going competitive environment is impacting our business in the form of lower volumes and highly competitive pricing dynamics in the marketplace.” An expected US$1 billion inventory writedown is probably not helping matters either.
RIM also announced that it had hired J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and RBC Capital Markets to help it review its business and financial performance. Options on the table include “opportunities to leverage the BlackBerry platform through partnerships, licensing opportunities and strategic business model alternatives.”
Confirming the rumoured layoffs (without giving numbers), RIM reiterated that it is looking to find savings of US$1 billion by the end of fiscal 2013. It will do so by “targeting better efficiency and use of resources in our sales and marketing initiatives” and eliminating “fragmentation, duplication and inefficiencies.”
Not all the news was bad. The company also announced that it expects to increase its cash position from the approximately US$2.1 billion it had at the end of fiscal 2012. It grew its global subscriber base to 78 million, primarily due to growth in international markets, and BBM now has 59 million users. Most importantly, it confirmed once more that it is on track to launch its next-generation BlackBerry 10 mobile computing platform in the latter part of calendar 2012.
RIM will announce its first quarter results in June.
Read more: Research In Motion