RIM Rejoices

Updated from June 29

Shares of Research In Motion (RIMM) rose Friday after the company said the previous day that it topped first-quarter earnings and subscriber growth predictions.

Per-share earnings in the quarter topped the Street's estimates by 2 cents a share. The company added 680,000 new BlackBerry subscribers in the quarter, about 5,000 more than it predicted.

Despite those achievements, the company's earnings fell year-over-year. And it predicted that second-quarter results will likely fall shy of analysts estimates.

RIM typically sees a slowdown in sales in the summer months, said company co-CEO Jim Balsillie in an interview with TheStreet.com. But that shouldn't concern investors, because overall RIM's business is in "great shape," he said.

As far as the guidance goes, "We're being careful and conservative," Balsille said. "The business is doing fine."

Investors seemed to agree. In early Friday trading, the stock was recently up $2.04, or 3.1%, to $68.02.

In the quarter ended June 3, the BlackBerry device maker earned $129.8 million, or 68 cents a share. That was down from a year ago, when the company earned $132.5 million, or 67 cents a share.

The profit slump came despite a 35% rise in revenue, year over year.

Still, the results topped the Street's outlook. Consensus estimates called for a profit of 65 cents a share on sales of $602.1 million, according to Thomson First Call. The company itself predicted in April that it would earn 60 cents to 65 cents a share in the just-completed period on sales of between $580 million to $610 million.

But, relative to expectations, the company's second quarter might not be as good. The company predicted that it would earn 67 cents to 73 cents a share on sales of between $620 million to $650 million.

On average, that works out to a profit of about 70 cents a share on revenue of $635 million.

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