Earlier this month a mystery company purchased one million BlackBerry 10 smartphones from BlackBerry. It was was a notable transaction because BlackBerry 10 just launched and because it was the biggest single order BlackBerry (formerly RIM) has ever received in one fell swoop.
Fast forward to Monday, and we now know the identity of the buyer. According to perennially bearish investment firm Detwiler Fenton, the buyer of the 1 million Blackberry 10 units was wireless distributor Brightstar, reports AllThingsD.
“A couple of years ago, Nokia, RIM and Samsung made up over 80 percent of Brightstar revenues, with RIM potentially comprising nearly half of that, I believe,” Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair told AllThingsD. “So [this is] no surprise.”
Brightstar is a massive distributor of cell phones and other gadgets. AllThingsD had originally predicted that the partner was Brightstar competitor Brightpoint, but its sources said the speculation was “a point off” but that they had the “bright” part correct. Putting two and two together, the news outlet was able to guess Brightstar.
The mystery is solved and regardless of who made the purchase, it still represents a risk-taking investment on someone’s part. So when you look at it that way, someone still has the hots for BlackBerry 10.
BlackBerry reports quarterly results March 28 and its early Blackberry 10 sales–in more than 25 markets–are sure to be hot topics on the company’s earnings conference call.
[Via All Things D]
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