RIM announced a fall in profits during its fiscal first quarter 2012, with Jim Balsillie, the company’s Co-CEO (pictured), stating that the year has “gotten off to a challenging start.” In a statement, the exec also warned that this will continue for the immediate future, with “delays in new product introductions into the very late part of August leading to a lower than expected outlook in the second quarter.” The company will now begin a programme to “streamline operations across the organisation,” which will include job losses. This restructure will “be focused on taking out redundancies and a relocation of resources to allow us to focus on the areas that offer the highest growth opportunities and align with RIM strategic objectives, such as accelerating new product introductions.” Specific details were not announced.

For the quarter to 28 May 2011, RIM reported a net profit of US$695 million, down from US$769 million year-on-year, on revenue which increased by 15.9 percent to US$4.91 billion. It saw a 45.5 percent increase in operating expenses to US$1.26 billion. The company said that it shipped around 13.2 million BlackBerry smartphones during the period, alongside about 500,000 Playbook tablets. In a trading statement issued in April 2011, RIM forecast that BlackBerry shipments would be “at the lower end of the range of 13.5–14.5 million,” meaning it missed its own revised target. The company said that revenue in the current quarter, which ends on 27 August 2011, is expected to be in the US$4.2 billion–US$4.8 billion (revenue in fiscal Q2 2011 was US$4.62 billion). Earnings per share for the full year is now expected to be $5.25–$6.00 – in April 2011, RIM was anticipating EPS of US$7.50. The company also announced a share repurchase programme.