BlackBerry Z10 Sales In The US Are Poor & ‘Returns Now Exceeding Sales’

iThis isn’t good if you’re a BlackBerry fan. The Wall Street Journal ran a story with ITG analyst Joseph Fersedi having this to say:

ITG analyst analyst Joe Fersedi writes that the Z10 launch “started poorly and weakened significantly as the days passed,” and that Z10 sales are “in line-to marginally ahead of anemic sales” of older BlackBerry models and the Nokia Lumia 822.

Fersedi said that initially the Z10′s share of sales was 4% at Verizon stores and 7% at AT&T stores, but those numbers have fallen to about 1% to 2%.

It gets worse. Here’s what a report from Detwiler Fenton had to say:

“We believe key retail partners have seen a significant increase in Z10 returns to the point where, in several cases, returns are now exceeding sales, a phenomenon we have never seen before,” Detwiler analyst Jeff Johnston writes in the report.

BlackBerry didn’t take these reports lying down:

“BlackBerry wishes to respond to media coverage today regarding speculation that there have been abnormally high levels of returns of BlackBerry Z10 devices.  This is absolutely false. Our data shows that return rates for BlackBerry Z10 devices both in the U.S. and on a global basis are in line with or better than our expectations and are consistent with return rates for other premium smartphones in the market today.”

So, what’s the truth? We’ll have to wait until BlackBerry’s next earnings call to find out. But I will say this. Analysts don’t make this stuff up, so there must be something to it. Otherwise, they wouldn’t take the risk of putting this in print. It could end badly for them and their clients. You may wish to keep that In mind.

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