Rimm shares up 6% pre market to over $9 on early release of BB10

RIMM shares are up sharply in pre market trade after announcing that it is to introduce its BlackBerry 10 smartphones on January 30 2013 and so confounding the more skeptical “anal”ysts that had expected the device to be released towards the end of the first quarter. 

Management have bet the company’s future on the success of the new line of products, which will be powered by its new BlackBerry 10 operating system – QNX and that is highly regarded in the technology sphere, being used by GM in their cars.

Thorsten Heinz, CEO said that RIM would launch simultaneously in multiple countries and that the company would introduce the first two BlackBerry 10 smartphones as well as the BlackBerry 10 platform.

RIM promises that the new devices will be faster, smoother and have a large catalog of applications that are now crucial to the success of any new line of smartphones.

Last week, RIM announced that the new platform and devices had received a much-coveted U.S. government security clearance, potentially allowing U.S. and Canadian government agencies to deploy the new smartphones as soon as they are available. These were the first BlackBerry products to win Federal Information Processing Standard 140-2 certifications ahead of their introduction, the company said.

The stock has struggled at the $9 marker and as we can see from the chart below, any strength above this key psychological level, particularly on a weekly closing basis will likely carry the stock back into the double digits before year end. We have a Conviction Buy on the stock and it’s fair to say the stock has tested our patience this year, requiring us to double down just over $7 six weeks ago but it looks like our patience may well now be shortly to be rewarded with an average in price of just over $10.