BlackBerry (RIMM) Says Goodbye to Marvell (MRVL), Hello Entry-Level

Research In Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) is shifted a lot of its resources away from high-end smartphones, evidently putting the hurt on Marvell (NASDAQ:MRVL) and possibly attempting to take advantage of the vacuum in the low-end market Nokia (NYSE:NOK) may have left opened.

Chip maker Marvell struggled in the last quarter, with revenue down 6% (to $901 million) and net income falling 13% (to $223 million) from the previous quarter - that's even with the Christmas season, which is normally the best time for smartphone sales.

CEO Sehat Sutardja blamed the results on a switch by one of Marvell's customers toward building low-cost, low-margin smartphones - a market that Marvell does not compete in. That customer is RIM, although that hasn't been officially stated.

RIM is facing increasing pressure from lower priced smartphones that run Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) Android operating system. Android pretty much came out of nowhere in 2010 and surpassed RIM's global market share. RIM grew in absolute numbers, but dropped to third place behind Android and leader Symbian (Nokia), according to Gartner.

Research in Motion closed Friday at $66.47, down $1.98, or 2.89 percent.