Sales in the US of the Z10, BlackBerry's flagship smartphone, are lower than expected according to several brokerage firms. Now, a report from Boston-based research and investment firm Detwiler Fenton notes a significant increase in Z10 returns, sometimes even to the point where returns are exceeding sales. BlackBerry has categorically denied the report and said it will ask the Securities and Exchange Commission and Ontario Securities Commission to investigate what it claimed was "a false and misleading report."
Two separate polls conducted recently suggest that there is something really wrong with the Canadian company's products. At a time when BlackBerry is pinning all its hopes on the Z10 and other handsets based on its new BlackBerry 10 operating system, one of the surveys found that 71.4 percent of polled people said they would never, ever, buy a BlackBerry.
The survey, by research house Raymond James, asked people which handset they would never use and BlackBerry topped the listing, beating iPhones and Android phones in the "I would never use this smartphone" category. A total of 250 people were asked the question, of which 19.7 percent said they would never buy an iPhone, 31.3 percent said they'd never buy an Android, and a whopping 71.4 percent said they'd never buy a BlackBerry.
In another poll from research firm MKM Partners, 83 percent of 1,500 Americans questioned weren't aware the BlackBerry 10 had officially launched. 82.6 percent of surveyed people said "no" to the question "Are you aware that BlackBerry 10 was launched in Canada and Europe in late January 2013?" In other words, only about one in six Americans know that the BlackBerry 10 even exists. The findings point to just how far the BlackBerry has fallen from its once ubiquitous position as the business phone.
It should also be noted that 60.5 percent of participants also said "no" when asked about the Windows Phone 8. When asked, "Are you interested in, or at all curious about, BlackBerry or Windows Phone?" 68 percent said "no" for BlackBerry, and 63.9 percent said "no" for Windows Phone.
Will the BlackBerry be able to recover or will it go the way of the Palm Pilot--a once must have business accessory that is now largely forgotten? Only time will tell, but things don't look good for the company.