[csmith954]

BlackBerry 7 sales sputter after strong start | Mobile - CNET News

Research in Motion is stuck between an Apple and an Ice Cream Sandwich.

(Credit: Research in Motion)

After some initial excitement for the new line of BlackBerry 7 smartphones and a strong launch--both unusual for RIM for the past year--sales are starting to sputter. That's according to Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley, who said his checks indicate a slowing trend for BlackBerrys.

It's likely sales have been blunted by the release of the iPhone 4S, as well as the lower price of the legacy iPhone 4 and 3GS models as well. The coming release of the Galaxy Nexus and phones running on the recently unveiled Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system is expected to provide additional pressure, while Nokia may take some shine off of RIM's growth overseas, Walkley said.

"We anticipate increasing competition across all tiers of RIM's products in 2012," he said in a research note sent to clients today.

RIM had hoped for its upgraded BlackBerry 7 operating system to inject some life back into the company's prospects and get it back on track as it migrates to a slicker next-generation platform. With that platform, BBX, expected to be delayed until the middle of next year, it's more important than ever for its current BlackBerry 7 phones to have a strong showing.

A RIM representative wasn't immediately available for comment.

But aside from the flagship Bold 9900 smartphone, which has generally received favorable reviews, its other BlackBerry smartphones haven't sold so well. RIM was suffering from weaker sales to consumers at Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, and Sprint Nextel, as sales were dominated by the iPhone and Android devices, Walkley said. Even the Bold has lost its momentum following the launch of the iPhone 4S and subsequent price cuts to the older models, he added.

Overseas, Walkley said he was more bullish on Nokia's prospects as it prepares to roll out its first Windows Phone devices in a few European markets. He expects Nokia to make more of a run in emerging markets where RIM has seen recent strength, which could cut into RIM's growth. He added that RIM's lower tier BlackBerry devices that had been popular are slowing considerably in the face of new Nokia phones and sub-$200 Android smartphones showing up in Latin America and Easter Europe. Nokia, meanwhile, is seeing more interest in its Asha series of phones in markets such as India and Indonesia, he added.

The troubled PlayBook.

Walkley was also bearish on the prospects of the PlayBook, saying he only expects "soft sales" of the device. The PlayBook has been heavily discounted in recent weeks, with Black Friday specials pulling the price down to $200, but sales have still been anemic. The missing core features of the device--e-mail access, messenger services and calendar--won't arrive until an update next year. Walkley dropped his fiscal 2012 estimate for unit sales to 900,000 from 1.5 million units. In total, RIM has only sold 700,000 units to its retail partners through the August quarter, an extremely disappointing number.

The competition is only going to get worse with the $199 Kindle Fire out and Ice Cream Sandwich-powered tablets hitting the market in the coming months.

All of this bodes poorly for RIM, which has a rough year. Even its traditional stronghold of enterprise customers is vulnerable. A recent study by iPass found more corporate users on an iPhone than a BlackBerry. IPass was quick to note that the change in market share may be more due to the extreme growth of iOS, as opposed to RIM losing customers.

But it can't be good if iPhone is beating RIM at its own game.

[kingbernie06511]

not sure if true, but it sucks and was completely foreseeable. They keep coming out with more of the same, on a platform that is not future bbx-compatible.
Duh.
What pisses me off the most is that not a single phone RIM sells is BBX compatible. Why doesnt the Torch touch have a dual-core cpu and same resolution as PB for backward compatibility? Every other phone maker sells dual core phones. so whats the big deal?

[spinrekkids]

not sure if true, but it sucks and was completely foreseeable. They keep coming out with more of the same, on a platform that is not future bbx-compatible.
Duh.
What pisses me off the most is that not a single phone RIM sells is BBX compatible. Why doesnt the Torch touch have a dual-core cpu and same resolution as PB for backward compatibility? Every other phone maker sells dual core phones. so whats the big deal?

Well said!

[kingbernie06511]

I bought a PB six months ago with the promise of getting native email by the end of summer....still waiting.

Im not touching a single RIM product until they are fully competitive and finished. I have an aging Storm 2 that I dont like, and im not going even near a OS7 device. They are pretty much sentenced to death on arrival. For that reason the 9790 anounced earlier this week is a joke.

I will need a new phone in 10-12 mo.... we will see if im still a rim customer then.

[BBThemes]

apple sales must be suffering too, i mean i havent seen any ques lately

love how one minute we believe the analysts, the next we `occupy` them

[kingbernie06511]

I identify myself to that article. I steered cleared of BBOS 6 because i was upset my Storm2 was not OS6 compatible (cheap shot RIM), and BBOS7 are the end of an era. PB is great but lack of native email (and not approving Earlybird app) leaves a bad taste in any Reviewer's mouth when describing PB and thereby shoots the whole BBX platform in the foot.

So as a 3y BB customer (had the 9000 before) I feel im not cheering for the right team and prefer to sit on the sideline until they come up with competitive products again.

[menaknow]

I am not sure about this article, not the slowing sales for RIM part, but the jump on other products.

With the worldwide slowdown and tightening of spending that people have started doing, I think that could be a big factor too.

Around myself anyways I am seeing a lot of people hold off purchases in general because they have no idea what the future will hold...

Also I find CNET never does a full investigation in anything....

[sleepngbear]

Does this guy realize that the 9900 has only been on sale through the biggest carrier in the US for less than two weeks?

@kingbernie, saying you're going to wait until RIM comes out with competitive products again strongly suggests that you need to have what everybody else thinks is cool. You buy stock based on what company is competitive; you buy goods and services based on what works best for you.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

[Chrisy]

Does this guy realize that the 9900 has only been on sale through the biggest carrier in the US for less than two weeks?

@kingbernie, saying you're going to wait until RIM comes out with competitive products again strongly suggests that you need to have what everybody else thinks is cool. You buy stock based on what company is competitive; you buy goods and services based on what works best for you.

Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Or maybe he needs Mobile HotSpot and wants a front facing camera. I like BBOS a lot too but I would like a few features added that are basic features in other platforms, like the two I mentioned.

[koroshiyax]

We won't know for sure until we get their next quarterly earnings numbers which should be soon. The so called "checks" that analysts perform is pitiful, it's likely they called a few Best Buys stores and asked how BBs were selling

[lnichols]

My Bold 9900 is great. I see all these people complaining about getting "stranded" with phones with Blackberry phones, but have you seen some of the people that post here with the competition's phones? Seems like a lot of the Android people are switching phones and rooting them multiple times per year, and the iPhone people perform their yearly upgrade to the latest greatest. I skipped OS6 because I the phones were literally the same hardware as OS5, with just an optical trackpad and slightly more memory, but OS7 is a nice jump. I wasn't going to keep my Tour for another year, and iPhone and Android will not meet my needs for actually having a working data international phone for travel that wouldn't use ton's of data without crippling the device, so OS7 is perfect and works great. If you think the grass will be greener then switch to something else and see if BBX phones are good enough to make you switch back, but I don't see the competitions phones holding the attention of the users for a long time without them wanting to upgrade.

[adrenaline_x]

Heh... I think the iFad is going to start to coming down from being high and mightly.. Once people lose the cool factor of having and iphone they will look for something else.

I initially had and iphone becuase i'm a ****** and wanted to show them off.. But then i came back to reality when the iphone 4 failed to work as a phone... And now i'm on my 9900 and love the thing.. Love it.. Way more then my iphone.

I never thought i would want a keyboard again but its just so much better then screwing up emails with ios auto correct.

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

Well, I must say, I want to see BlackBerry come fighting back. Hopefully options will be opened for those of us who can't get decent BlackBerry deals... I had to jump to Android, but then jumped on to Windows Phone 7.5 - and unfortunately, given how the phone works, I doubt I'll ever come back

[EchoTango]

While I find Canacord to be pretty good (at least fair) but these "channel checks" are not always a reflection of reality. Last quarter they reported a "meltdown" in Blackberry sales. The company ended up selling 11.5 million (of old stock) as opposed to the projected 14.5 million. While not great news, certainly not a meltdown.

However, the analysts by and large have been right in predicting RIM's future performance and I, on the other hand, have been completely wrong.

[grover5]

There are a ton of android phones that came out over the last year that will never see ICS. That's just how it goes sometimes. I love my 9900 though and really don't care that BBX won't be on it. At any rate I don't see much evidence in this article but I do see a lot of conjecture.

[avt123]

There are a ton of android phones that came out over the last year that will never see ICS. That's just how it goes sometimes. I love my 9900 though and really don't care that BBX won't be on it. At any rate I don't see much evidence in this article but I do see a lot of conjecture.

I agree with your statement, but I wouldn't really compare this with Android. Most of the high end devices will have ICS. That can't be said about any current high end BB. Also, with Android if the manufacturer tells you no updates, expect the dev community to tell you "we'll get it done".

That being said, not everyone will go through the process of rooting and installing a custom ROM, but at least they have the option and it is relatively easy to do.

Once BBX is out though this upgrade problem should be reduced to a minimum. We all know it takes RIM a while to improve on their hardware anyways, usually just minor updates. Maybe that will change as well.

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

We won't know for sure until we get their next quarterly earnings numbers which should be soon. The so called "checks" that analysts perform is pitiful, it's likely they called a few Best Buys stores and asked how BBs were selling

I agree, last 4 or 5 quarters RIM has come back with worse than expected results. Those analysts just can't seem to get it right!

[BB.David]

Does this guy realize that the 9900 has only been on sale through the biggest carrier in the US for less than two weeks?


Posted from my CrackBerry at wapforums.crackberry.com

Actually Verizon is currently the #1 U.S. carrier but knowing Verizon is out there pushing their LTE devices, it would be interesting to know how well the 9930 is actually doing.

[robtanz]

I agree, last 4 or 5 quarters RIM has come back with worse than expected results. Those analysts just can't seem to get it right!

I don't think that is correct. Maybe the last couple.

[trsbbs]

BlackBerry 7 sales sputter after strong start | Mobile - CNET News

Same thing many of us have been saying for months. OS7 was/is too little to late.

The small, short bump in sales from OS7 phones will be diluted by R and D costs, write offs and legal costs.

This is going to be a very long cold Winter in Waterloo!



Tim

Sent from my BlackBerry

[berklon]

The problem is the software and the hardware doesn't really differ much from previous releases. To the majority of consumers it was the same 'ole, same 'ole. And the ones that did jump aboard basically got something they should've had over 2 years ago.

It's been said a thousand times before - RIM is so far behind that it's killing them.

Unfortunately BBX devices being released Q3 is much too late... and that's even assuming Q3 is accurate - the odds are (going by history) it'll be later than that. The competition will be ahead of them BEFORE the new BBX devices are out.

[OniBerry]

As long as the innovations/upgrades/redesigns are done well, I'll continue to be a BB guy. Not really concerned what other companies are doing in comparison, just what they can do for me. I was coming from a double tapping 9780 and was welcoming a change. I was intrigued by a qwerty/touch combo and bought one. I am not going to buy a phone for at least 10 months to a year, so it really doesn't matter what may come out when. When I need a new device, I'll look at what's available, but pay special attention to BlackBerry and choose the one that fits.

[Premium1]

I think the fact that they said the bb7 devices would not be bbx compatible turned some off especially after the bb6 devices would most likely not get bb7. Plus until they get more developers on board for apps, people are not going to want to jump to that platform.

[Economist101]

Heh... I think the iFad is going to start to coming down from being high and mightly.. Once people lose the cool factor of having and iphone they will look for something else.

Yes, I'm sure that's coming any day now. But for the moment. . .

Would-Be iPhone Customers Still Facing Weeks-Long Waits - Digits - WSJ

I initially had and iphone becuase i'm a ****** and wanted to show them off.. But then i came back to reality when the iphone 4 failed to work as a phone... And now i'm on my 9900 and love the thing.. Love it.. Way more then my iphone.

So not just more, but way more, which is a lot "more" than just "more." Got it.

I never thought i would want a keyboard again but its just so much better then screwing up emails with ios auto correct.

Good point. I mean, why bother screwing up e-mails with auto-correct when you can screw up comments with a physical keyboard?

[frankzaman]

Analysts get it wrong all the time. I think that OS7 sales in the US will ramp up over time. Think about it, with all the bad press RIM's gotten this year only the diehards (and teens) were waiting for these phones, so there wasn't a huge initial demand. Once some people who had written BB off see the new phones, some of them will likely switch. The phone's advertise themselves. Before august, all of RIM's phone's were over a year old...and that's crappy advertising.