Long-term boost from RIM’s PlayBook uncertain, according to analysts

28th March, 2011 by adina
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Although Research in Motion has provided an optimistic outlook for its long-term financial performance, analysts have serious doubts that the upcoming PlayBook tablet would be capable of generating a significant turnaround. The company had warned of short-term lackluster performance and, as a consequence, its stock valuation dropped about eleven percent.

According to a Reuters report, AdvisorShare fund manager Brad Lamensdorf said that RIM would possibly underperform for a certain time, until getting some traction back. The fund has kept a $500K short position in the company’s stock.

Other concerns of the analysts were related to the time-frame necessary for RIM to bring the QNX OS to BlackBerry phones. As analyst Brian Modoff from Deutsche Bank suggested, RIM is supposed to continue losing market share to Android, since QNX is not expected to come until 2012.

Other critics stressed there was a lack of a high-end smartphone able to compete with both the iPhone and a series of Android handsets. The company seems to face much lower margins and is losing market share both in North America and Europe and is mostly relying on revenue coming from the cheaper handsets it had sold abroad.

Ed Snyder, analyst at Charter Equity Research, cited the example of Google, which had three OS versions in a single year, forcing its partners to review their hardware the same number of times. He said that any company acting this way, and Apple was also included on long term, would probably lose.

It remains to see the revenue effects of the BlackBerry PlayBook, as its shipment is scheduled on April 19. The price of the new tablet will be $500.


     

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