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Signs of Life at RIM: Blackberry Subcribers, Shares Show Surprise Increase

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Research in Motion offered investors a ray of hope on Tuesday, announcing an unexpected increase in subscriber numbers that sent its shares up 5 percent as the company worked hard to drum up enthusiasm for its crucial Blackberry due 2013.

Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, a pioneer in the smartphone arena, has in past years lost market share in North America to Apple Inc and Samsung, whose more versatile and user-friendly devices took off.

RIM is trying to reinvent itself through a line of jazzed-up smartphones that will run on the BlackBerry 10 or BB10 operating system on which the company has staked its future.

In an attempt to create a buzz around the new devices, Chief Executive Thorsten Heins gave a preview of the smartphone and its features to its developers at a gathering on Tuesday in San Jose, California.

Dressed in an outfit few Silicon Valley executives sport – a grey pinstriped suit – Heins said the company was fighting for its future.

“There is new energy and a new fighting spirit in this company,” he said as he listed new features from Internet browsing to multitasking between applications.

Heins said BlackBerry’s subscriber base had risen to 80 million in the quarter ended September 1 from the 78 million it reported earlier this year.

The addition of subscribers surprised many on Wall Street and sparked a bounce in the company’s share price. Most analysts had expected RIM to begin losing subscribers in the recently ended quarter…

 

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