RIM Sells Only Few BlackBerry Torch Devices

Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion has put on sale on August 12 a new device, the BlackBerry Torch 9800, and the first reports on the handset's sales emerged. It seems that the company managed to move only a small number of devices during the first weekend of availability of Torch, with some analysts calling the sales as being “underwhelming.”

Although the BlackBerry Torch comes to the market with a form factor new to the BlackBerry lineup, the device failed to impress as much as some might have expected it too, it seems.

According to analysts at Goldman Sachs, the launch of the new sliding mobile phone was “underwhelming,” as most of the stores where the new device went on sale did not manage to run out of stock, at least this is what a recent article on Street Insider notes.

Another interesting finding the research firm announced is that most of those who purchased the new Torch 9800 were existing BlackBerry users interested in upgrades.

When compared to the sales other smartphones registered at launch, the first days of availability for BlackBerry Torch 9800 indeed seem poor, although the fact that it is available via a single carrier certainly had a lot to do with this.

Apple's iPhone 4 is among the handsets that attracted a lot of users on its side right from launch, although many were also upgrading from previous versions of the device.

The Android-based DROID family of handsets over at Verizon should also be mentioned when it comes to the devices that registered impressive sales at launch.

DROID X by Motorola is one of them, which was sold out during the first few hours of availability, and which is currently shipping with a delay of about 2 weeks.

BlackBerry Torch 9800 came to the market with a new OS version, BlackBerry 6, which brought in a new UI and a series of other performance improvements. The device can be purchased from AT&T's website here.