Chip suppliers say RIM will switch to entry-level smartphones

Beijing time March 5 Morning News, RIM, one of the major component suppliers, chip manufacturer Marvell said Rim will be more resources to "entry-level smartphone" transfer. In the quarter ended January 29, Marvell's performance was poor, with revenues falling by 6% to $901 million. Net profit fell 13% to $223 million a quarter. Benefiting from the Christmas holiday, the quarter is usually the peak of smartphone sales, but Marvell still fails to achieve good results.　　Marvell's shares fell more than 11% per cent after the earnings release. Marvell CEO Sehat Sutarga (Sehat Sutardja) said Marvell's poor performance in the quarter was mainly due to the company's customers turning to low-cost, low gross-margin smartphones, and Marvell did not offer such a chip product.　　It is widely believed that Sutarga's client refers to rim. RIM is now facing the impact of cheap Android phones. The Android system developed rapidly last year and has surpassed rim in global market share.　　Despite the rise in RIM's BlackBerry sales, the smartphone market has lagged behind Android and Symbian, according to Gartner. Nokia is facing a very messy situation, and the company recently announced it will move the smartphone platform from Symbian to Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 in the next few years. Rim may be hoping to grab Nokia's market share, which has sold a number of low-cost Symbian smartphones before. (D-Gold)