RIM Stumbles

Research in Motion’s struggle to remain relevant in the market it helped create is going better than expected, though there’s certainly room for improvement. Reporting fourth-quarter earnings after market close Wednesday, the company said it added 4.9 million new BlackBerry subscribers during the period, exceeding forecasts of 4.4 million to 4.7 million.

Welcome news given recent concerns about the impact new Apple (AAPL) iPhones headed to market might have on sales. Sadly for RIM (RIMM), the revenue and earnings per share posted today were both below expectations. The company earned $710.1 million, or $1.27 per share, on revenue of $4.08 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings of $1.28 per share on revenue of $4.3 billion, according to consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters.

At $69 RIM shares are down 6.7 percent in after-hours trading.