RIM reports healthy profits, BlackBerry sales

The maker of the BlackBerry has reported a 107 percent year-on-year increase in quarterly revenue.

RIM announced its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2009 on Wednesday. The results show revenue for the quarter was $2.24bn (£1.13bn), up from $1.08bn in the corresponding quarter last year. Revenue in the final quarter of fiscal 2008 had been $1.88bn, so there was a 19 percent quarter-on-quarter revenue increase.

At £482.5m, quarterly profits also more than doubled year-on-year.

The number of BlackBerry smartphones shipped in the first quarter of fiscal 2009 was around 5.4 million, up from four million in the previous quarter. After 2.3 million new subscribers were added to the BlackBerry service in the first quarter of this year, the service now has 16 million subscribers in total.

Jim Balsillie, RIM co-chief executive, said that the company is "well positioned to build on its momentum throughout the remainder of fiscal 2009". "As we prepare this summer to ship our 40 millionth BlackBerry smartphone, we continue to steadily scale our business and partnerships to support the opportunities ahead in this thriving sector," he said.