14 DAY TRIAL // Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion is gearing up for the release of a whole series of next-gen smartphones, RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie said during a conference call aimed at offering an update on the financial guidance for the company's first quarter of fiscal year 2012, which should end May 28, 2011.
Apparently, the handset vendor expects for its financial results to be lower than the forecast in March, due to an aging smartphone lineup.
The handset vendor expects for the shipment volumes of BlackBerry smartphones to be close to the lower end of the range of 13.5-14.5 million devices they forecast last month.
The company also announced that the fully diluted earnings per share for Q1 should be in the range of $1.30-$1.37, lower than previously stated. Gross margin should be similar to the 41.5% previously guided, the company announced.
“Expected shipments of BlackBerry PlayBook in the quarter continue to be in line with our previous expectations and we have not experienced any significant supply disruptions in Q1 due to the impact of the Japan earthquake,” the company announced.
On top of that, Jim Balsillie said that, although the company feels great about the BlackBerry OS and the new BlackBerry PlayBook, they feel the need to bring newer, higher-end products on shelves.
As All Things Digital notes in a recent article, he also confirmed that the BlackBerry World next week would be an exciting event, and that the company will be transitioning to new devices and a new OS.
“We’re cutting over to a whole new platform and whole new set of products and it’s very powerful and we’re very excited about their long-term strength and the long term strength of the company,” he stated.
“We are straight in the middle of the whole tablet mobile computing space. And we absolutely have a whole next generation of smartphones, so strategically we feel fantastic, but operationally this stuff is pushed out so you have this transition.”
Among these new devices, we might see the already leaked BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900, Touch 9860 (Storm 3), a BlackBerry Torch 2, Curve Touch, or a new Curve model, but nothing was officially confirmed on this for the time being.
Also, CrackBerry notes that, as expected, RIM would rename the BlackBerry OS 6.1 to BlackBerry OS 7, based on the wide range of enhancements the new platform release would arrive with.
BlackBerry World is set to kick off next week, and all of the necessary details on RIM's plans for the future should be unveiled at that time, so stay tuned fore more info on the matter.