Research In Motion reported higher earnings in its first quarter today, but the company’s stock traded lower as investors looked ahead to the rest of the year in which the BlackBerry-maker must compete against a slew of new smartphones, including the iPhone 3G S, the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre and the latest Google (NSDQ: GOOG) phone. Still, the company’s forecast for the second quarter remained bullish.
The company came close to analyst expectations of earning 94 cents a share on revenues of $3.4 billion during the period ended May 31. RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) said revenues totaled $3.42 billion, up 53 percent from $2.24 billion in the same quarter of last year. Net income for the quarter was $643 million, or $1.12 a diluted share, compared with $482.5 million, or 84 cents a diluted share. Typically, analysts make their estimates based on adjusted net income, which totaled 98 cents a share.
In after hours trading, RIM’s stock traded down about $4.78, or 6.3 percent, to $71.87. During the day, the stock closed at $76.55 a share.
— Handsets and subscribers: During the quarter, RIM shipped about 7.8 million devices and added about 3.8 million net subscriber accounts. At the end of the quarter, it had about 28.5 million subscribers.
— Q2 forecast: Revenue for Q2 is expected to fall between $3.45 to $3.70 billion. Gross margin is expected to be about 43 to 44 percent. Net subscriber account additions are expected to be in the range of 3.8 to 4.1 million. Q2 EPS is estimated to fall between 94 to $1.03 a share.

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