Analysts around the world believe that Research In Motion is in a rush to launch its new smartphones based on the next generation QNX platform. This is believed to be a result of the unsatisfactory sales of the Canadian manufacturer’s newly launched range of smartphones which run on BlackBerry OS 7.
Peter Misek, an analyst for Jefferies & Company suggested in a note addressed to the investors this Friday that the new smartphones from RIM have generated much lower demand than was expected. A report which came out earlier had gone on to suggest that the devices were selling well to the enterprise customers while individual users were generally unimpressed.
The reports from Misek have indicated that the sales of these new devices to the carriers are barely satisfactory, whereas those of the older smartphones are steadily going down. He also went on to suggest that this could lead to low follow up demands from the carriers which can be damaging to the earnings of RIM for this quarter, dealing the already staggering company another blow.
The analysts estimate that the BlackBerry manufacturer shipped a total of 12 million smartphones during the second quarter. Minsk has projected the expected quarterly revenue for the company during the next quarter to come in at around $4.4 billion, compared to the Wall Street’s consensus of $4.7 billion.
His expectations from this quarter, which will form the verdict for the BlackBerry OS 7 devices, are around the $4.8 billion mark, in contrast to Wall Street’s projections of $5.5 billion with analysts from RBC Capital Markets suggesting that the company could beat Wall Street projections.
Analysts also have a fairly common consensus that RIM may be in a hurry to get the first of its QNX smartphones in the market. Misek wrote that according to his analysis, the company is rushing the first phone based on QNX and as a consequence it is being stripped of a number of features.
The phone, which has been codenamed as Colt, was first reported a couple of weeks ago as the first BlackBerry which will run on the QNX platform. It was also reported back then that RIM may consider making a couple of concessions on the phone’s quality in attempts to launch it in the market as soon as it was possible. One of the major features which are expected to be left out is the current version of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server.
