Canaccord Genuity Maintains Hold on Research in Motion After Monthly Channel Checks

Canaccord Genuity has published a research report on Research in Motion

after completing its monthly channel checks on the company. In the report, Canaccord writes, "Our monthly checks indicated weak sell-through trends for RIM's BlackBerry 7 smartphones with poor sales trends for the Bold 9900 and Curve 9360 in key markets. Further, we believe the iPhone, Android smartphones, and new Windows smartphones have extended the feature and functionality gap versus RIM's struggling BlackBerry 7 devices. With its BlackBerry 10 smartphone slated for H2/C2012, we believe RIM plans to launch two lower-end BlackBerry devices during the May quarter in an attempt to maintain strong subscriber share in emerging markets. Our checks indicate carriers anticipate pricing for the new products at similar levels to the older 2G 8520 models." Canaccord maintains its Hold rating and $15 price target on Research in Motion, which closed yesterday at $14.04.