Research In Motion’s battered stock received a bit of a lift this week after a number of analysts raised their outlook on the company ahead of the launch of its BlackBerry 10 devices. RIM’s stock rally began when Jefferies & Co analyst Peter Misek changed his stock rating from a sell to hold based on “a favorable reaction from telecom carriers to the new devices and the BB10 operating system.”
The stock got another boost when National Bank analyst Kris Thompson wrote in a note that RIM could ship some 35.5 million devices in its fiscal 2014 year (which starts in May 2013). This was up from an earlier estimate of 31.6 million devices. “The shipments boost reflects about one more month of BB10 product availability plus a little extra for the positive sentiment building in the industry from our discussions,” Thompson said. Even before BlackBerry 10 launches, he believes that RIM’s stock could hit US$15.
RIM will unveil its first BlackBerry 10 devices on January 30th. An all-touch device (L-Series?) will launch first followed shortly after by a QWERTY keyboard one (N-Series?). Lower-end models (Curve replacement R-Series and S-Series?) will follow later in the year possibly with a new flagship series as well (the A-Series?).
Could analysts be warming up to RIM once more? It certainly looks that way…
Read more: Reuters