^video comparing BlackBerry's PlayBook and the iPad
Summary
BlackBerry sales are expected to be tied to iPhone sales in its last quarter, with the help of its new Torch smartphone. Many factors contribuled to the sales which includes their great success with their BlackBerry Torch, a touchscreen phone with an improved browser and a revised operating system. Although the smartphone market explodes, RIM has lost four percentage points of global smartphone market share in a year. During their third quarter to Nov. 27, about 14.1 million BlackBerry phones have been shipped out and that would be tied with the amount of iPhones that were shipped out in its quarter. It is also predicted that RIM will earn US$1.64 per share and revenues at $5.40 billion, with gross margin slipping to 42%. When RIM made forecasts for the quarter to Nov. 27, net additions were slow and behind, where analysts predicted to record 5.1 million net subscriber additions. Apple and Google, who are BlackBerry's rivals, have had huge successes with their touchscreen devices filled with applications. During the three months to the end of November, RIM's share price raised 30% after leaking details about its PlayBook tablet computer. Investors and technophiles are anxious to try it out to compare it to Apple's iPad.
Connection
The connection to chapter three is the income from operations, which is the gross profit or gross margin and revenues. Gross profit or gross margin is the sales minus cost of goods sold (the expense that is recorded to reflect the value of the inventory sold during the period). RIM's major source of revenues is selling goods, so it must make enough profit or margin from sales of its goods to cover all the other costs of operating the business. By looking at the gross margin of a company, users can assess the profitability of the company's products, in this case the BlackBerry. You can also find the gross margin percentage, which is the gross margin divided by the sales. You can then use this percentage to examine and evaluate a company's progress. You could determine how well they're doing by observing whether this percentage has been increasing, decreasing, or staying the same and by comparing this percentage with other companies within the same industry.
Reflection
Research In Motion Ltd. and Apple Inc. rivalry has been heating up for some time and both companies have been extremely successful in advertising their products like the BlackBerry and the iPhone. Sales were nearly tied during the last quarter but RIM took it to the level by launching a new video comparing the BlackBerry PlayBook with the iPad. In the video, it shows that the PlayBook loads websites much faster, provides richer content because of their support for Flash, it's animated, supports open web standards, and many more. The PlayBook also has a 3-megapixel front-facing camera for videoconferencing and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera. It is also said to have an "ultra portable design" and "breathtaking multimedia" on RIM's website. Shares will probably go up as BlackBerry gets ready to launch its new tablet early this year, which will create more competition with Apple Inc.
Joshua Thang
ReplyDeleteFinancial Accounting 12
Your connection was great and you had a well-thought out reflection. However, I have some other suggestions that you could of put down on your connection. For example you could of explained how the accounting cycle could be placed into effect in this situation. Since this article talks about sales and revenue, you could say how these transactions could be journalized. For example, if someone bought a BlackBerry for $200 for cash, you could say cash would be debited for $200 and sales revenue would be credited for $200. If someone bought a BlackBerry on account. The company would debit its accounts payable for $200 and credit sales revenue for $200. Since BlackBerry is considered a inventory we will have to include that in the calculations of the cost of goods sold, but we do that when doing the posting process. You could also explain how revenue and expense accounts are temporary accounts. So after the company has journalized and until they reached the point where they have to close their books. This means that temporary accounts must be reset to zero before the next accounting period starts. For sales revenue, since it is in the credit side, we have to debit it in to an account called income summary. For expenses, since it is on the debit side, we have to credit it to make expenses reseted to zero. After we have transferred all the revenue and expense accounts into income summary account. There is still one more step. Since income summary is also a temporary account, we have to transfrer that into a permanent account. So now we transfer all values in income summary accounts into retained earnings either as debit or credit. If it's a debit, it is decreasing retained earnings and if it's a credit, it is decreasing retained earnings. For the reflection, I agree with your opinion because now BlackBerry phones are getting higher in quality and the apps found in BlackBerry phones have a high demand that result in increased prices and quantity exchanged. Also factors that resulted in high sales were mainly advertisements and features of the phone which made it a worthy competitor to Apple's iphones.