BlackBerry Torch Sales So-So to Positive – Match Palm Pre and Sold-Out HTC EVO but Not iPhone

Weekend
sales were around 150,000 phones for the AT&T Blackberry
Torch 9800, according to Analysts at RBC Capital Markets and Stifel Nicolaus. While yesterday, Goldman Sachs called sales of the BlackBerry Torch "underwhelming," some bloggers and analysts contend the sales are not that poor.

The numbers approximate the sales of the Palm Pre and the sold-out HTC EVO 4G.. Goldman Sachs reported continued strength with the HTC EVO 4G and Droid X.

Gleacher & Co. analyst Mark
McKechnie called the Blackberry
Torch launch as "positive", saying that the device met
with "good demand" in its first weekend of availability. McKechnie
contacted AT&T stores around the country, who were seeing solid
demand for the Blackberry
Torch but were not
selling out of the device. He found than many stores sold half of
their initial shipment of phones over the weekend. A majority of Blackberry Torch buyers were likely to have been BlackBerry users upgrading.

In a round-up of analyst reports Larry Dignan called the overall sales so-so. The report form

William Blair analyst Anil Doradla, sums it up, "One key point that we consistently heard from the stores
was that the initial response to the Blackberry
Torch was nowhere close to the
launch of the iPhone 4."

Although it's not a "quantum leap" RIM CEO Jim Balsille called it, it's
doing well enough to warrant discounted sales at online retailers. Sales
are popular with BlackBerry addicts with reviewer amongst them calling
the BlackBerry Torch "wow", while other reviewes who compared it to current high resolution smartphones, said "too-late-now."

Both Amazon Wireless Beta and Wirefly
are selling the BlackBerry Torch 9800 at a special introductory price (too
low to show close to the big "C" discount) for a new contracts or
renews and upgrades.

Even with a zippy Buddy Holly song and business people on roller coasters, Ad Age suggested that BlackBerry has an uphill battle against the big screen stars.