Morgan Stanley’s Ehud Gelblum today reiterates an Equal Weight rating on shares of Research in Motion (RIMM)�, writing that the company could have far more “gross subscriber additions” in the next six months than he’d thought as a result of the new BlackBerry devices introduced last month.�
Gelblum had a survey done of 1,852 cellular subscribers between September 8th and 12th, and found that among those who already have a BlackBerry, 46% plan to upgrade in the next six months.�
Of those, 60% plan to buy a BlackBerry on the new “OS 7” platform, he writes.�
That implies there will be 10.5 million replacement BlackBerry units sold in those six months, he calculates, making up 75% of the 14.5 million replacement units he’s been projecting.
That could mean more subscribe sign-ups:
WhileIn addition, the survey results imply that RIM could see upwards of 15M gross sub adds over the same 6 month period due to the new BB7 devices, far above our 11.6M net add estimate for that period. �The largest sub-segment of those 15.4M potential gross adds (43% to be exact) comes from existing feature phone users upgrading into their first smartphone.
Overall unit sales should meet or exceed his estimates, he concludes:
WhileIn total, the survey results suggest RIM could ship as many 10.5+15.3 = 26M BB7 devices over the next 6 months, just 3M shy of our total device est of 29M. �Therefore if RIM sells just 3M of the older BB6 devices over that period, our topline ests should be achievable.
However, Gelblum is sticking with his lukewarm rating on the shares given the plethora of competing phones coming in the next several months, and the uncertainty of RIM’s transition of the BlackBerry to the new “QNX” operating system.�
RIMM today is up 22 cents, or 1%, at $21.48.�
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