Concluding paragraphs of another stark RIM snapshot
A possible explanation lies in the way ‘‘sales’’ were reported in previous quarters. Perhaps these transactions weren’t totally final, meaning they shouldn’t have been recorded as revenue because the buyer had the right to return Playbooks to RIM. Faulty reporting of revenue could spell trouble with shareholders, the SEC and hungry attorneys.
Still, RIM only reported a total of 700,000 tablets “sold” for the Q1 and Q2, they can’t have all been returned and massive returns would have been disclosed previously, one hopes.
RIM’s Q3 numbers will be released in a week, on December 12th, giving the company an opportunity to explain this strange $485M number. This should be interesting.
There’ll be more to watch, such as the year-to-year change in smartphone sales, the state of relations with applications developers and, crucially, how much cash is left in RIM’s coffers. For the last reported quarter, it was $1.15B, down from $2.1B the previous period. This isn’t much to wage today’s smartphone wars.
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