This afternoon we’ll find out if Google Android phones have started to make a dent in Blackberry sales when Research In Motion releases its fiscal third-quarter results after market.
Verizon Wireless and RIM (NSDQ: RIMM) have been partners of convenience over the past couple of years. The two had each other when Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) teamed up with AT&T (NYSE: T), Palm (NSDQ: PALM) teamed up with Sprint (NYSE: S) and T-Mobile worked closely with Google (NSDQ: GOOG). It worked, too: Verizon is the exclusive provider of RIM’s only touchscreen device, and its buy-one-Blackberry-get-one-free offer has propelled the Curve to be the best-selling device for multiple quarters in a row. But now Verizon’s spending $100 million to push the Motorola (NYSE: MOT) Droid, which may hurt BlackBerry sales and pump up sales of Google’s Android operating system. IDC analyst Ramon Llamas told BusinessWeek Verizon has to be careful not to push the Droid as a BlackBerry alternative: “Verizon is being very savvy about this. The Droid is a consumer phone, and with consumers increasingly picking up BlackBerry devices, that’s forcing Verizon to walk a tightrope between them.”
Already, Verizon has extended the buy-one-get-one-free offer to the Android platform. If you buy the Droid for $199, or HTC’s Droid Eris for $99, you will get another Droid Eris free.
It’s not clear whether we would already see an impact in today’s results from RIM. RIM’s third quarter officially ended Nov. 28 and the Droid went on sale Nov. 6. And, while Droid sales were rumored to do fairly well, they were not off the charts great. In fact, Google’s Android has not registered very high in terms of marketshare so far. Comscore (NSDQ: SCOR) reported U.S. smartphone marketshare today, and based on its survey, RIM was the clear winner in October, reports Engadget. Apple’s iPhone came in second, beating out Windows Mobile for the first time, and Google fell behind Palm and even Symbian.
RIM’s reaction to increasing competition has been to pack more features into each phone, but not increase prices — that means lower margins for the handset-maker. Analysts are expecting RIM to report sales of 9.7 million devices and 4 million new subscribers in the Q3, compared with 6.7 million devices and 2.6 million subscribers a year earlier. In a Bloomberg survey, analysts expect RIM to report sales of $3.78 billion and $1.04 earnings per share.
Of course this is not the first threat RIM has faced. Perhaps, the biggest threat is still coming from the iPhone, but also increasingly from the Palm Pre, which Verizon is rumored to start selling early next year. In anticipation of its earnings, RIM’s stock is trading 90 cents, or 1.4 percent, lower this afternoon to $63.75 a share.

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