Research in Motion announced two days ago that it is currently putting together all the reports and will soon come out with the sales figures for the third quarter, which appear to be rather far from the company’s previous estimates and are very likely to disappoint Wall Street analysts.

RIM is the sixth largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world, and its officials expect the total revenue from the fiscal quarter to come in between $2.75 to $2.78 billion, representing a dip of about 9 percent from midpoint analyst forecasts.

The adjusted earnings for RIM are expected to be in the range of 81-83 cents a share, even though the initial forecast for this quarter was of about 89-97 cents per share. Moreover, RIM estimated an addition of about 2.9 million subscriber accounts, but the quarter ended with a number just over 2.6 million new subscriber accounts, which represents a number with about 10 percent below the company’s expectations.

RIM shares fell 3.6% to $35.96 after falling 6% Tuesday on Palm's similar warning. Palm fell 16.8% to $1.68; Motorola fell 1.2%; and Apple fell 2.3% to $90.37.

"Initial sales of new products have been very positive and we believe we have the strongest smartphone portfolio in the industry by far. However, product launch timing, general economic conditions and foreign exchange volatility have tempered our results in the third quarter," explained Jim Balsillie, RIM’s co-CEO, in a recent statement. "We believe RIM is well-positioned to capitalize on the increasing smartphone market opportunity and we remain focused on driving growth in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 and beyond," he added, referring to his strong belief that RIM’s newly released Storm smartphone will make all the difference in the fourth quarter. The Storm is the company’s first touchscreen Blackberry and its release has been highly debated and anticipated by many.

The public’s response on the Storm was extremely strong and this is why RIM believes that the fourth quarter will bring the badly-needed boost. Even though the quarter will take place in the same environment significantly weakened by the economic crisis, the holiday season should add that little extra to the grand totals, and so far the sales figures appear to be heading in the right direction.

The quarter’s lower than expected figures could be explained through the worldwide financial crisis, which is expected to lead to such surprises for many other companies, as there isn’t a single area or industry that managed to escape untouched by the massive economic impasse. RIM's executives actually blamed the shortfall on the stronger dollar and the general economic weakness in the United States. Several phone manufacturers have already reported lower-than-expected sales. Nokia, the world’s largest cell phone maker, released a warning last month announcing that it expects to sell fewer handsets than it had initially estimated during the fourth quarter of 2008.

RIM is expected to report its final third quarter results during its quarterly earnings conference call scheduled for December 18.