• Associated Press, Friday, October 5, 2007 10:45 AM

BlackBerry maker Research in Motion posted strong fiscal second-quarter earnings on Thursday, more than doubling its profits thanks to sales of its BlackBerry handsets. The Canadian company's net profit was $287.7 million, up from $140.2 million last year. Overall revenue also doubled to $1.37 billion, up from $658.5 million, which just surpassed analysts' expectation of $1.37 billion.

The Ontario-based company added a whopping 1.45 million BlackBerry subscribers in the second quarter and shipped more than 3 million handsets. Despite results that CEO Jim Balsillie described as exceptionally strong, RIM shares fell $1.02 to $99.52 in after hours trading. RIM's outlook was also strong, expecting third-quarter results to fall within $1.60 to $1.67 billion.

These have been rosy days for the BlackBerry maker, which an analyst with the National Bank Financial, points out "has had a massive run in such a short period." The future looks bright, too, in part because RIM doesn't have a real competitor in the push-email delivery market, the key differentiator between its handsets and others. Canaccord Adams analyst Peter Misek expects the stock go even higher, once the new BlackBerry models are released.

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