BlackBerry reported a GAAP profit of $265 million in its third quarter, a result that beats the company's lowered forecast but represents a 27 percent decrease from the previous quarter. (See RIM Writes Off Inventory.)

In reporting earnings Thursday, the company said it shipped 14.1 million BlackBerrys in the quarter, which ended Nov. 26, but only shipped 150,000 PlayBooks, a sharp dip from previous quarters. RIM ended the quarter with nearly 75 million subscribers, up 35 percent over the previous year.

RIM reported non-GAAP earnings of $667 million, or $1.27 a share -- not including its PlayBook writedown or a charge from its service outage -- on revenues of $5.2 billion. A year earlier it reported a profit of $911 million or $1.74 a share on revenues of $5.5 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $1.19 per share on revenue of $5.27 billion.

Shares of RIM were down $1.03 (6.8%) to $14.10 in after-market trading.

— Sarah Reedy, Senior Reporter, Light Reading Mobile