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Canaccord: Galaxy S4, Lumia 1020 selling well, BlackBerry 10 sales ‘weak’

Published Sep 5th, 2013 4:30PM EDT
Galaxy S4 Lumia 1020 Sales

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The Lumia 1020 may only be available for $300 on one carrier but that doesn’t seem to be stopping it from posting modestly healthy sales. Per Barron’s, Canaccord Genuity analyst Mike Walkley has come out with his latest survey of smartphone sales and has found that both the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the Nokia Lumia 1020 have been doing well over the past month. While the Galaxy S4’s success isn’t surprising, it is interesting to hear that the Lumia 1020 is reportedly doing well even though it’s starting out at a higher price point than rival devices. What’s more, Walkley sees the Lumia brand as a whole having a halo effect for Windows Phone 8, which finally seems to be gaining traction.

“Our surveys indicated positive sales rep reviews and decent sales for the Lumia 1020 at AT&T,” he writes. “Our global surveys indicate gradually improving Windows Phone 8 smartphone sales due to strong sales of the Lumia 520 and other mid/low-tier Lumia smartphones. In fact, our surveys indicated solid Lumia 520 sales not only in emerging markets such as Russia and key APAC region countries but also in developed markets such as the U.K. and the U.S.”

On the downside, however, Walkley has found that all BlackBerry 10 devices that have been released this year are experiencing “very soft” and “weak” sales. While BlackBerry’s struggles are well documented, Walkley says that he’s still surprised at the low sales for the BlackBerry Q10, which the company had hoped would be a hit among physical keyboard enthusiasts.

“Our U.S. August wireless store surveys indicate continued very soft Z10 and Q10 sales at Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile,” Walkley explains. “Many store representatives we spoke with indicated minimal interest in and sales of the Q10. Given BlackBerry’s installed base of QWERTY handset users, it is surprising how weak sales are for the Q10. In fact, the overall lack of consumer interest in the Q10 appears to have considerably weakened over the past few weeks. In addition, our U.S. surveys indicated minimal consumer interest in and sales of the Z10 smartphone. Further our global surveys indicated weak sales of the more affordable Q5 smartphone and rapidly declining legacy BB7 sales.”

And it gets worse: Walkley sees that BlackBerry’s decision to bring its BlackBerry Messenger service over to iOS and Android will further erode hardware sales going forward.

“Now that Android and iOS will support BBM, we anticipate a sharp decline in BB7 consumer sales, particularly in emerging markets, as consumers upgrade older BB7 devices to affordable Android smartphones with their BBM networks intact,” he says.

Brad Reed
Brad Reed Staff Writer

Brad Reed has written about technology for over eight years at BGR.com and Network World. Prior to that, he wrote freelance stories for political publications such as AlterNet and the American Prospect. He has a Master's Degree in Business and Economics Journalism from Boston University.