RIM shares surge as BlackBerry sales hit record 7.8 million

Shares of Research In Motion stock rose almost 23 percent after the company reported strong quarterly and year-end results for its BlackBerry smartphones, climbing back from a precipitous fall in February that drove the company to issue an outlook warning.RIM announced $3.46 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009, which ended February 28. That's a 24.5 percent increase from the previous quarter of $2.78 billion, and up 84 percent year-over-year. The company also said it signed up 3.9 million net subscribers who are new to the BlackBerry platform during the quarter. The results were slightly better than Wall Street's estimates, which had dropped significantly with the February warning. Much like Apple, RIM is doing well enough in comparison with its peers that even meeting expectations is cause for celebration in the current economic conditions."We are very pleased to report another record quarter with standout subscriber growth that speaks volumes about the early success and momentum of our new BlackBerry products," said co-chief executive Jim Balsillie. "RIM experienced an extraordinary year in fiscal 2009, shipping our 50 millionth BlackBerry smartphone and generating $11 billion in revenue."Revenue for RIM's entire fiscal year was $11.07 billion, up 84 percent from $6.01 billion in fiscal 2008. The Canadian company reported $518.3 million in net income for the quarter ($0.90 per diluted share) compared with $396.3 million ($0.69) for the previous quarter. A year ago the BlackBerry manufacturer reported $412.5 million, or $0.72 per share, in the same quarter.Quarterly gross margin was 40%. The company is estimating revenue for the first quarter of fiscal 2010, ending May 30, 2009, in the range of $3.3 to $3.5 billion while adding 3.7 to 3.9 million new subscriber accounts. RIM says the fourth quarter's revenue breaks down to 83 percent for devices, 12 percent for service, two percent for software and three percent for other revenue.