Now we know why Verizon Wireless, which is the exclusive carrier of the BlackBerry Storm, is running a BlackBerry BOGO campaign.
This morning Research in Motion announced that fourth quarter earnings will be lower than expected, despite the fact that customer subscriptions exceeded predictions — about 20 percent higher than 2.9 million initially predicted back in early December.
It seems that while RIM attracted more new customers than expected following the arrival of Storm just before the holiday season, fewer BlackBerry owners are upgrading to a new device.
Given today’s economy who can blame them? If the phone’s working fine than why spend another $200 for a new device?
So what better way is there than to offer a buy one, get one campaign to entice BlackBerry addicts feeling a budget pinch to toss out the old and grab a new handset?
The smartphone maker’s forecast now is for quarterly revenue of $3.3 billion and $3.5 billion, with share earnings of 83 cents to 91 cents. Wall Street was hoping for about $3.4 billion and 86 cents on share.
The news sent the stock price down a bit — about $5.45 — a 9.55% drop in pre trade this morning, to $57.04
