Grynn's  Instablog

I live in Bombay and recently spoke to some mobile phone dealers in south bombay to find out how many Z10's they were able to sell.

1) Most of them could only get hold of very few handsets initially - between 20-50

2) The first batch sold well (most dealers were able to exhaust the first batch)

3) Sales are now terrible. Every one of them has stock. They all blame the price.

4) Only Black available - no one seems to have supply of white Z10s.

5) They're selling the upcoming 'Q10' as follows:

5.1) It will be cheaper (Rs. 30,000 instead of the Rs. 45,000 Z10)

5.2) It will have much better battery life

Disclosure: I am short BBRY.

Which means a lot of good press and a lot of love for $APPL in the enterprise space, where it's already winning marketshare.

Also note the concept of using biometrics to securely unlock phone/tablet has been patented by $AAPL (bit.ly/YwFqG5)

(click to enlarge)

More bad-news for $BBRY.

Disclosure: I am short BBRY.

Additional disclosure: And LONG $AAPL

So it seems 1/3 of the users signing up for the Z10 are from non-BBRY platforms. Ok.

Positive interpretation:

$BBRY is able to convince users of competing platforms that they have a better offering and it's worth switching. Good, new revenue from new users. Proof the new business model (device sales only) could work.

Negative interpretation:

$BBRY is not able to retain it's existing clientele. The conversion rate among the much touted 80 million existing $BBRY users is very low.

So what happens now? What will the existing 80 million do?

1. Nothing - keep using BB7 and below

Not bad for $BBRY in the longer term - since this translates to BIS revenues. And there's hope that a future product could meet this demand. (Perhaps the Q10, but I really doubt it).

2. Switch to a new platform - like iOS or Android

Very, very bad... loose revenue from BB plan and also loose potential sale of Z10. If BBRY can't convince 'em now...

3. What am I not thinking about? :)

Hence, the interesting question to me is: How many people are switching away from $BBRY as opposed to waiting, now that they've seen the Z10 / Q10...

Position

I still see no +ve signs for $BBRY. From the time I last Instablogged about $BBRY - it's been going down about 1% a day. (13.20 => 12.60). I expect it will keep falling...

Disclosure: I am short BBRY.