Research in Motion Ltd. (Nasdaq: RIMM), maker of the BlackBerry phone, traded sharply higher yesterday (Thursday) after Goldman Sachs analyst Simona Jankowski upgraded RIMM to a “Buy” with a price target of $16. RIM gained 4% Thursday to close at $11.54.
Although there are a growing number of bulls among analysts on the Street, there is still a large and vocal group of bears who think that RIM is done for.
Research in Motion is planning to launch its BlackBerry 10 smartphone on Jan. 30, 2013. The company is pinning its hopes of survival on the BlackBerry 10 taking a small piece of the smartphone market away from giants Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG), which split the smartphone market between their iOS and Android operating systems, respectively.
Goldman Sachs’ Jankowski says that the BlackBerry 10 (BB10 in the terse to the point of being unintelligible analyst-speak) doesn’t even have to be a success for RIMM shares to perform well.
“We now assess a 30 percent chance of success for BB10 given positive early reviews, broad-based carrier support, attractive features, and interest by carriers and consumers in broadening the field beyond Android/iOS,” Jankowski wrote.
Other analysts are even more bullish.
