RIM May Need To Write Off $1 Billion In Inventory

benfrog writes "Blackberry maker Research in Motion may need to write off more than $1 billion in inventory, according to Bloomberg. The potential 'writedown' comes after RIM took a $485 million pretax charge to write down the value of its PlayBook inventory in December. RIM has said it aims to save $1 billion in operating costs this fiscal year by cutting its number of manufacturing sites and is 'reviewing its organizational efficiency' across the company, which may lead to job cuts of 2,000-3,000. Its shares have tumbled 75 percent over the past year and are down 90 percent from their all-time high."

Comments

RIM may be in freefall

[Baloroth]

RIM still made $3.64 billion in revenue last year, for $197.5 million in profit (a huge drop from last year, but they are still making money). RIM definitely could still succeed, but not like this. They are still a massive company with a huge name-brand, they just need to figure out how to use that. It may be unlikely, but I wouldn't mind seeing them succeed: more competition in the smartphone industry could be a very good thing. I'd hate to see it turn into a pure Android/iOS duopoly with no chance of a third competitor (Windows Phone... doesn't really count).

Re:What's With All The RIM Hate?

[epiphani]

Funny, I have a current Bold 9900, and the battery easily lasts a full day with heavy email use and several hours of conference calls. I'm not sure what you're using, but I haven't run into the issues you're talking about since the original Bold like 4 years ago.

Re:HP should buy them

[Eponymous Coward]

Almost the entire WebOS team has been hired by Google. I don't think HP is doing anything with WebOS anymore.