Research in Motion (NASDAQ:
RIMM
) is expected to discuss its future plans tomorrow during the
company's annual shareholders meeting in Waterloo, Ontario. Over
the past several months, Research in Motion has gained a lot of
attention for announcing
multiple delays
of its long-awaited mobile OS update, BlackBerry 10. Investors
and analysts have been equally frustrated with the firm's
decisions; over the past 30 days, RIM's shares have plummeted
more than 20 percent.
Oppenheimer has been particularly critical of the BlackBerry
maker,
stating
, "With BB10 now delayed to 1Q-CY13, we're concerned the North
America subscriber base could be irreparably harmed and that
international markets could follow."
RIM's troubles are nothing new. The company has been in
turmoil since the day the first Apple (NASDAQ:
AAPL
) iPhone was released. At that time, BlackBerry was still
considered to be the premiere smartphone brand among many
business professionals. But in the last three years, Apple
(NASDAQ:
AAPL
) and Google (NASDAQ:
GOOG
) overtook that market. During the same period, RIM shares lost
more than 90 percent of their value.
When the company prepared for its shareholders meeting last
year, Jim Balsillie (who was co-CEO with Mike Lazaridis at the
time) was quoted in
InformationWeek
as saying, "We are currently approaching the tail end of a
significant transition in our business, that, frankly, few
companies would have survived."
That "significant transition" has not done much for the
company. As
The Globe and Mail
points out, RIM's stock price was above $27 before last year's
shareholders meeting, and the company's share of the American
smartphone market was roughly 25 percent.
Today, RIM's market share has dropped to somewhere around 11
percent. Investors responded to the company's declines and
product delays by abandoning the stock, which now trades at
around $8 a share.
"RIM's prospects appear to be turning from bad to worse," Bank
of America
wrote in a report
last month. "In our view, the risk of total value destruction
over the next few years is possible as at this point we cannot
see the light at the end of the tunnel."
RIM may not need a few years to fall apart. The embattled
BlackBerry maker could face new competition if Amazon (NASDAQ:
AMZN
) follows through with its plans to
produce a top-tier smartphone
. But Amazon's rumored entry into the highly competitive
smartphone market pales in comparison to the damage that has
already been done by RIM's existing competitors. Last fall, more
than
37 million people
purchased the iPhone 4S. Samsung is projecting that it will sell
more than 10 million units
of its latest smartphone, the Galaxy S III, by the end of
July.
The same cannot be said for the PlayBook, RIM's last major
product release. Designed to compete with the iPad, the PlayBook
is a seven-inch tablet with technology that may have found its
way into the
first-generation Kindle Fire
. RIM is not expected to release a new PlayBook anytime soon.
However, Amazon is expected to launch an all-out war on the
tablet market by releasing
three new Kindle Fires
. Google is expected to shake up the seven-inch tablet market
with its first device, the
Nexus 7
. And there is already talk of what the
next iPad may be like
.
The prevailing trend here is that RIM's competitors frequently
release new products, while RIM does not.
Wireless Giant, which owns the
only BlackBerry store in the United States
, was hoping that BlackBerry 10 devices would bring customers
back to the retail outlet. Without any new products to excite the
masses, however, the store may not be able to survive.
In the end, the company behind the BlackBerry may not
either.
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@LouisBedigianBZ
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