We knew that Research in Motion is struggling to stay afloat and hence we did not find this bit of news any surprising as RIM’s share fell below $10, lowest since 2003.
RIM’s shares have seen a rapid decline since the last four days and have dropped by about 5.8% yesterday to $9.66 per share, which is the lowest it has ever been since Dec. 2003. This effectively means a slump of approximately 98% from its high of $147.55 in mid-2008.
RIM had already indicated that they were expecting financial losses in 2012 and are already in talks with JP Morgan and the Royal Bank of Canada to explore strategic options.
As per reports by Bloomberg, RIM is set to register operating losses for the first time since 2004 in the second quarter of 2012. At the same time, it is also fighting a losing battle to decrease the high rate of customer deflections in the US and the European markets. Also the fact that, their market share has almost halved in this quarter itself to as low as 6.4% (according to IDC) doesn’t help matters either.
Add to it the pressure being exerted by its shareholders, who want the firm to either sell itself or its patent portfolio in order to gain some meaningful returns out of RIM.
BB10 is also slated to release only in the fourth quarter of 2012 and it’s difficult to see RIM survive till then or even be in a position to stage a comeback to say the least. As Windows Phone gains momentum every quarter, the window of opportunity for the BlackBerry maker to make a comeback gets narrower.
But we can see a few loyalists who just not yet ready to give up on the Waterloo based firm. 🙂
