Research In Motion stock punished for weak sales

Shares of Research In Motion (RIM) plunged almost a fifth on Wall Street on Friday after reporting sales and profits that fell short of expectations. The company’s signature BlackBerry mobile phones have been selling like hotcakes in many developing markets, largely thanks to the budget-friendly low, fixed data price for messaging and browsing from the phone, but are struggling in the Americas and Europe.

RIM shares lost 19 percent on the Nasdaq stock exchange to close at US$23.93. It had a market capitalization of more than US$30-billion at the start of the year, but the latest declines have reduced its value to around US$12-billion. At the same time as this recent bad news, the company also suffered a major outage of its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) service in Canada and Latin America.

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