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RIM boost as 2.2m sign up to BlackBerry
03.04.08
Blackberry smartphone-maker Research In Motion (RIM) added 2.18 million subscribers for the device in the fourth quarter, helping it beat estimates on profit and sales.
The company is driving up sales with discounts on music-player-equipped phones such as the Curve and the Pearl, which sell for about a quarter the price of the Apple iPhone. Net profit for the quarter was $412.5 million (£206.9 million), up from $187.4 million a year earlier.
The Canadian company forecast that it would add another 2.2 million subscribers this quarter. In a potentially ominous sign for Apple, RIM said that more than half of new customers last quarter were consumers and small-business owners. In the past, the BlackBerry has been used almost exclusively by the big corporate sector.
The BlackBerry accounted for 41% of US shipments for email phones in the fourth quarter compared with iPhone's 28% and Palm's 9%.
