Canaccord Genuity Analyst Changes BlackBerry 10 Forecast

By: Talha Bhatti  |   March 6th, 2013   |   Business, News, O Canada, Smartphones

After the launch of its latest platform and all touch smartphone, BlackBerry saw the hype surrounding its stock and company fade. Many analysts had shown hope that the company would do better than expected because of the anticipation from consumers. After the global launch of BlackBerry 10 and the Z10 phone the Canadian firm has received mixed reviews which has led the share price of the company give back many of the gains it had made recently. Two weeks ago Mike Walkley, a Canaccord Genuity analyst, cut his sales forecasts of the all touch Z10 smartphone and delivered a major blow to the firm. Walkley had initially projected sales of the device to hit two million unit but changed the numbers to a meager 300,000 on February 19. However, on March 4 Walkley claimed that he over did it when he dropped the sales forecast.

 

BlackBerry first made it to stores in the United Kingdom when the Canadian firm launched BB10 globally on January 31. Consumers in Canada also go the new phones fairly soon as did other markets from around the world. The U.S., which many consider to be a very important market for smartphones, will not get the device until the middle of March.

 

Walkley stated in his latest research note that, “Given our store surveys indicated modest Z10 sales in the U.K. and Canada with limited initial inventory levels, we admittedly reduced our February quarter sell-in estimates too low for the first month of the Z10 launch.” He added that, “With the Z10 launching in additional markets the last weeks of February, we have increased our February quarter BB10 smartphone sell-in estimate from 300K to 800K units.”

 

BlackBerry may have a difficult time in the United States which is dominated by Apple and Android powered devices. The Canadian technology firm sells its devices to carriers who in turn then sell it to their consumers. American carriers have not seemed to excited to bring BB10 to market and Sprint has only ordered the Q10 while T-Mobile is looking to only offer the Z10. Walkley sees these are reasons for not being very optimistic about the future of the company.

 

He states that, “Our follow-up surveys have indicated steady but modest sales levels for the Z10. With new BB10 smartphones launching in the U.S. only in mid-March or later at subsidized prices no better than competing high-end Apple/Samsung smartphones, combined with our expectations for the Galaxy S IV to launch at a similar time frame in the U.S. market, we anticipate BlackBerry will struggle to reclaim high-end smartphone market share.”

Source: The Globe And Mail