February 23, 2008 at 12:21 am · Authored by Ricky · Filed under News

Research In Motion, the company that brings you the Blackberry (and lets the service go down periodically) recently upped its estimates for new subscriber growth for their fiscal quarter which ends on the first of March. The company raised its forecast by 15-20%, bringing the total forecast to around 2.1 million new subscribers. This strong growth expectation comes in spite of recent outages, and is likely due to the slower holiday shopping season and older inventory.

The company did not, however, increase its financial projections for the same quarter. Analysts guess this is either because RIM expects to exceed expectations, or possibly simply a slower upgrade trend for the higher-end handsets.

In any case, it definitely shows that smartphone shipments continue to grow, with more and more subscribers picking up a new smartphone.