"As smartphones become more sophisticated, memory usage in the devices continues to rise -- not only to satisfy user wants and needs but also to accommodate demands made by ever-more powerful processors and increasingly refined LCD screens," said Clifford Leimbach, analyst for memory demand forecasting at IHS, in a report.

Beleaguered smartphone maker , saying revenue fell year over year to $2.9 billion, compared with $4.2 billion.

The company's sales, however, edged out the consensus estimate of analyst polled by Thomson Reuters, of $2.5 billion. RIM's loss of $235 million was better than the $518 million loss in the prior quarter.

Though market analysts have cut forecasts for global IT spending this year, they still expect overall increases. Forrester earlier this month estimated that 2012 IT spending growth would be 3.6 percent, lower than its January prediction of 5.3 percent.

IDC said that it forecasts worldwide IT spending to increase 6 percent this year in constant currency, just under last year's 7 percent rise. (The difference between the figures from different research companies lies mainly in how they define various categories of IT, notably software, services and communications.)