The Storm’s a hit, but RIM may miss
Despite the hundreds of customers who queued up outside Verizon (VZ) stores early Friday to buy the Storm – Research in Motion’s hot new smartphone — the company is likely to miss its subscriber targets for the quarter that ends Nov. 29, according to a report issued Monday by Citigroup (C) analyst Jim Suva.
The Storm, RIM’s (RIMM) answer to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, sold out almost immediately — and that’s the problem, according to Suva.
Further investigation, he says, showed that the stores only received 40 to 100 units each, and that disappointed customers were told they could order online but wouldn’t get their Storms until Dec. 15 — too late to count in RIM’s third quarter sales.
The Storm’s late release and its limited supply were among several factors that caused Suva to trim his estimate of new subscriptions this quarter from 2.9 million to 2.7 million. He also predicts Q3 earnings to come in at $0.85 per share on sales of $2.85 billion — well below the Street’s consensus of $0.91 EPS on sales of $2.96 billion.
Among the other clouds on RIM’s horizon, as Suva sees them:
- Lack of Wi-Fi on the Storm and reviews that were “generally positive, but by no means spectacular.”
- The delayed launch of the Blackberry Bold at AT&T (T) and sales that, while “solid,” seem to be primarily replacements rather than sales to new subscribers.
- The continued unavailability of the Bold in the United Kingdom, a key European market for RIM.
- The “tepid” response to the Kickstart clamshell phone at T-Mobile (DT), which seems to be more concerned with selling Google (GOOG) G1s than RIM BlackBerries.
- A shift in thinking within corporations, which in today’s economic climate are starting to view the BlackBerry as a “nice to have” item rather than a “have to have.”
See also BlackBerry Storm: The reviews are in and BlackBerry Storm vs. Apple iPhone.
The BB Storm launch is perhaps the worst product launch in recent memory! Where was RIM’s forecast for initial sales? To wait for the phone next month is absurd and will certainly make consumers reconsider the iphone.
iPhone is so much better
Storm is not a hit and RIM did miss
This blog said everything I wanted to say about it
http://admiralh.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/why-the-blackberry-storm-is-no-iphone-killer/
i have just read the link from the annonmou person in boston, which says the storm has got the thumbs down from the UK, however i work in a store at vodafone, and i can tell you right here that the handset has so many sales that our store alone (all be it a small one) has many more orders to fulfil as and when stock becomes available, it has sold far better than any other phone at launch, and yes there are some teething problems, yet with the batteries, it is all about common sense, because you can have so many apps running at the same time, this will reduce power the more that are open, such as the media player, even if it is only open and not playing, it still uses the same power as if it was playing, but we have a storm demo phone in store, and we charge it every night, and use it all thru the working day, i have never had to recharge it mid day, so ours is over 8 hours moderate use, which is the same for all our store demo phones.
“Vodafone customers give thumbs down to Blackberry Storm 9500 - 18th Nov 2008″
http://www.mortgagebrokers4london.co.uk/article.php?article_id=1120
> reviews that were “generally positive, but by no means spectacular.”
Hmm, I must have been looking in the wrong places, because all the reviews I saw were universally negative about the device.
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The storm is a hit?
Either someone has dropped an s, or Europe has different standards. I must admit I haven’t seen one yet, but the Storm has been crucified over here. Folks are pretty much saying it doesn’t work.