The popular BlackBerry maker, Research In Motion (RIM), today released third quarter financial earnings that beat Wall Street expectations, sending the RIM stock surging up by about 12-percent in after hours to $70.76 (as at 5:36pm EST), up from the $63.46 market-close.

Q3 (ended November 28) earnings were $3.92 billion ($1.10 per diluted share), while Wall Street was expected $1.04 per share and up to $3.79 billion in total revenue.

The company announced that net income for Q3 was $628.4 million, up significantly from $475.6 million in Q3 2008, a year ago.

RIM also announced that it netted about 4.4 million new BlackBerry subscribers, bringing the total subscriber count to 36 million users worldwide.

The company reported record shipments of more than 10 million BlackBerry handsets in Q3, despite intensifying competition, including from Apple’s iPhone.

The positive news today comes as North American subscribers experienced an interruption in the BlackBerry Internet Service (BIS), leaving subscribers without email and other BIS related notification. RIM acknowledged the problem today and confirmed the issue has been resolved.