Research In Motion (RIM) today announced that more than three million subscribers are now using the award-winning BlackBerry® wireless platform, with one million subscribers added in less than six months. This milestone demonstrates the rapidly growing popularity of BlackBerry and follows another six months of intense activity with RIM and its partners, including various new product introductions and many initiatives with new and existing carriers, licensees, ISV’s and other partners around the world. With more than three million active BlackBerry subscribers worldwide, BlackBerry continues to lead the industry.
“It’s an exciting time as BlackBerry continues to enjoy enormous success and rapid growth around the world,” said Jim Balsillie, Chairman and Co-CEO, Research In Motion. “With over 50,000 retail points of presence, accelerated geographic expansion and the anticipated addition of 100 new carriers in 2005, we are scaling our operations for the five million and 10 million subscriber milestones.”
BlackBerry subscribers reached the one million mark in February 2004 and doubled in less than ten months, reaching two million subscribers in November 2004. The surge to three million subscribers demonstrates the continuing momentum and expanding market opportunity for RIM and its partners.
For corporate customers, BlackBerry Enterprise Server™ software tightly integrates with Microsoft® Exchange, IBM® Lotus® Domino™ and Novell GroupWise® and works with existing enterprise systems to enable secure, push-based, wireless access to e-mail and other corporate data. For individuals and smaller businesses, BlackBerry Internet Service™ allows users to access up to ten corporate and/or personal e-mail accounts (including Microsoft Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino and many popular ISP email accounts) from a single device.
This milestone is consistent with RIM’s previous guidance for Q1 subscriber additions of 560,000-590,000 that RIM provided in its press release dated April 5, 2005. RIM’s first quarter for fiscal year 2006 ends May 28, 2005 and results will be reported June 29, 2005.
