TORONTO (Reuters) - Research In Motion on Thursday reported fiscal second quarter earnings and gross margin figures above analyst expectations, sending its stock up more than 6 percent.
COMMENTARY:
DANIEL ERNST, HUDSON SQUARE RESEARCH
"Clearly I think people are underestimating the smartphone market coupled with the strength of RIM within it."
"Despite the iPhone 4, despite the acceleration of Android RIM's got a great product. Around the world, firms are still getting mobile email for the first time,"
"The market over-indexed to perceptions of (the Torch's) weakness. it didn't do great but it didn't do bad either.
"Torch launched late in the quarter, in one country with one carrier. Even if had done fantastic it wouldn't have changed the numbers that much,"
ED SNYDER, ANALYST, CHARTER EQUITY
"They'll get a little bit of a goose here on the quarter, but it will probably fade back out again, because the big concern isn't that they're not making any money, the biggest worry is that they're going to lose market share in smartphones."
"That said, the financials will remain very strong for the foreseeable future. They're not in any danger from a profit point of view, or a cash flow point of view, because their legacy products are selling well and as they move into new markets with those, overseas, they'll sell a lot there. But sooner or later, it's all going to catch them if they can't get the new stuff out and make that a big success too."
"It's a good quarter, the stock's going to move up, but I think the big problems that most investors are worried about are going to persist."
MATTHEW THORNTON, AVIAN SECURITIES
"This is a nice surprise on the upside. Revenue was better, EPS was better, units were better both for the current quarter, as well as the November quarter guidance,"
"I'm pleased, when you look at the revenue and the volumes and the EPS. The EPS estimate for the next quarter was just absolutely crushed,"
TODD COUPLAND, CIBC WORLD MARKETS
"Clearly a lot of the channel checks that were done during the quarter were not done very well... RIM has a powerful distribution model and relationships with carriers around the world and they have obviously been able to leverage that."
DUSHAN BATROVIC, ANALYST, DUNDEE SECURITIES
"Very strong quarter top and bottom line. I think that the only thing the bears will nit-pick at is net sub (subscriber) adds. Those were 4.5 million, the street was at around 5 million. That was really the only weak spot here, but that is more than compensated from just really strong results across the board and really strong guidance for next quarter, which was a really important thing for them to put out."
"I'm sure there will be those that argue that this company is still headed downwards but I think it's going to push out those timelines here -- the fact that they've been able to pull out these numbers without really having any significant new product launches last quarter. The Torch came in late and it wasn't a blockbuster and they still pulled out a really strong performance."
(Reporting by Sinead Carew, Susan Taylor and Euan Rocha)