BlackBerry sales fall below expectations

Disappointing BlackBerry sales caused shares in Research in Motion to fall nearly 5 per cent on Thursday, just as Apple fans queued for hours to buy its rival iPhone 4 smartphone.

Toronto-based RIM said it shipped 11.2m devices in its first quarter, ending May 29, and added a net 4.9m new BlackBerry subscribers.

Although the company shipped its 100 millionth BlackBerry during the quarter, the figures were at the bottom end of its guidance of 11.2m to 11.8m in handset shipments and subscriber additions of 4.9m to 5.2m. RIM’s disappointing report followed a worse setback for Nokia, the leading smartphone maker, which a week ago warned that its second-quarter profit would miss previous projections. Nokia’s share of the market has held steady, with average selling prices falling, and it is losing out in the high-end of the market dominated by the iPhone.

RIM’s numbers fell well short of the spectacular growth disclosed by Apple and Google in recent days.

Apple said last week that it took in a record 600,000 orders for its iPhone 4 on its first day.

Google said on Wednesday that daily sales of devices based on its Android operating system had risen from 100,000 to 160,000 over the past month. Gartner, a research group, reported last month that RIM’s share of the worldwide smartphone market in the first quarter fell to 19.4 per cent from 20.6 per cent a year earlier.

In contrast, Apple’s share rose to 15.4 per cent from 10.5 per cent and Android’s increased to 9.6 per cent from 1.6 per cent.

RIM said first-quarter sales grew 24 per cent on the previous year to $4.24bn, but this was below average analyst estimates of $4.35m, according to a Bloomberg survey. The handset maker reported earnings per share increased 41 per cent on a year earlier to $1.38. Quarterly profit was $769m, up from $643m the year before.

RIM shares fell 1.8 per cent to close at $58.58 in New York.