Friday, November 21,2008 @ 1:55pm
BlackBerry Storm queues top 200 people
Lineups for this morning's launch of the BlackBerry Storm have cracked the triple-digit mark and prompted sellouts, early reports note. One of the company's flagship stores in midtown Manhattan noted over 200 people in line for the touchscreen phone's morning debut and is said to have prompted a minor police response after a phone sellout angered those at the back of the queue. Sellouts have also been reported at other locations but haven't been given more definite numbers.
More shipments are expected over the weekend, while some follow-up orders are expected to arrive five to seven days later.
The lineups are larger than for T-Mobile's G1 debut last month, which saw modest lines at most in San Francisco for the device, but falls short of lineups experienced during the iPhone 3G launch in the summer. A combination of renewed demand and activation issues resulted in lines of several hundred buyers or more as well as daily lineups that lasted for several weeks after the introduction.
Verizon is banking on a strong Storm launch for its holiday performance and is believed to be losing a small portion of its subscribers to AT&T due to the latter's exclusive for the iPhone. About 40 percent of iPhone buyers during the summer came from outside carriers, most of which are understood to come from Verizon.