Research In Motion shares come back

Updated: 7:40 p.m. ET.

 

Shares of Research In Motion (RIMM, news, msgs) tumbled after the close after fiscal-first-quarter results included weaker-than-expected guidance.

 

But investors apparently changed their minds, and the stock came charging back.

 

The BlackBerry maker said it earned 98 cents per share in the quarter that ended in May after one-time items. That was up from 86 cents a share a year ago and ahead of the Reuters consensus analyst estimate of 94 cents.

 

Net income was up 33% to $643 million.

 

Revenue was $3.42 billion, up 53% from a year ago but off slightly from the Reuters estimate of $3.43 billion.

 

Research In Motion shares dropped below $72 after hours but revived late to $76.50, off 5 cents from the close. In regular trading, the stock fell 0.9% to $76.55 in regular trading.

 

The company added 3.8 million new subscribers in the quarter, pushing its total to almost 29 million. But that was nearly 10% less than the analyst estimate of 4.2 million new subscribers, CNBC's Jim Goldman reported. 

 

On Wednesday, Research In Motion's Co-Chief Executive Officer Jim Balsillie said the company has more than 1 million government clients.

 

And the company said on Tuesday that it will introduce its BlackBerry Tour this summer.  

For the second quarter, which ends Aug. 29, RIM expects revenue of between $3.45 billion and $3.7 billion and earnings per share of between 94 cents and $1.03.

 

It sees its subscriber base growing by 3.8 million to 4.1 million. Analysts are forecasting earnings of 97 cents a share on revenue of $3.61 billion.

 

RIM faces competition from Apple (AAPL, news, msgs), which introduced a new version of its popular iPhone last week, and Palm (PALM, news, msgs), which debuted its new Pre earlier this month. The lower-than-expected subscriber growth may mean Apple and Palm are starting to have an effect on RIM.

 

Apple was up 0.2% to $135.88 today; Palm was off 4.6% to $13.06.

 

Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek told Reuters that Research In Motion's results marked "a solid quarter," but said RIM's outlook may fall short of what some were forecasting.

"Expectations going into this were really, really high, so I think there's going to be a little bit of disappointment with the guidance," he said.

 

Charley Blaine contributed to this report.