RIM delays the launch of Blackberry 10 smartphones

CANADIAN PHONE MAKER Research in Motion (RIM) is delaying the launch of smartphones running its Blackberry 10 operating system amid disappointing financial results.

RIM's Blackberry 10 smartphones were initially earmarked for launch in the first three months of 2012, but the company said they will now be released later in the year.

The company reported disappointing financial results for the quarter ended 26 November on Thursday. RIM predicted Christmas quarter sales of between 11 and 12 million smartphones, down from 14.8 million in the same period last year.

Net income was $265m (£171m), down precipitously from $911m a year earlier.

RIM's joint chief executives Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis said in a statement, "As part of our commitment to improving our performance to better meet the expectations of shareholders and customers, we continue to evaluate ways to improve in several areas of the company's operations.

"It may take some time to realise the benefits of these efforts and the platform transition that we are undertaking, but we continue to believe that RIM has the right set of strengths and capabilities to maintain a leading role in the mobile communications industry."

Earlier this month, we reported that RIM lost cash after selling Playbooks at a discount failed to rid it of excess inventory.

RIM sold only 150,000 Blackberry Playbook tablets in the third quarter, although based on its internal data it said that sell-through to end customers was higher than this number.

The company also said that it will take a charge of $50m related to the service outage that occurred in the quarter. µ