Motorola DROID, the second handset from Motorola that came to the market with Google's Android operating system on board, also the first such handheld launched by Verizon Wireless, is estimated to have been sold in around 100,000 units during the first weekend of availability. The figures might not be as impressive as one would have expected, yet they clearly show that Motorola is regaining its foothold.

According to a recent article on Bloomberg, Mark McKechnie at Broadpoint AmTech Inc. stated that Verizon Wireless had around 200,000 Motorola DROID units in stock, and its stores managed to sell about half. As McKechnie indicates, Motorola will succeed in selling more than 1 million Android-based handsets in the fourth quarter of the ongoing year, a figure that includes other phone models too.

The main rival for Motorola DROID is Apple's iPhone, which is sold in the US on the airwaves of AT&T. The latest iPhone variant, launched back in June, was sold in more than one million units during the first weekend alone. However, Motorola has been losing market share lately, reaching around 4.7 percent in Q3 2009, compared to the 5.5 percent it accounted for in the second quarter.

“I see the first few days as encouraging,” McKechnie said. “There seems to be pretty good demand - they’ve taken the right steps and picked a good partner with Google on the Android side.” The Motorola DROID, as many of you might already know, was put on sale on November 6 via Verizon's stores and on its website.

Motorola might indeed recover a lot following the launch of this highly anticipated device. Its shares went up in New York Stock Exchange, following a rising trend that started earlier this year. Jim Suva, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in San Francisco, also stated that the Schaumburg, Illinois-based handset maker took a great step in the right direction with the release of DROID.