Research In Motion Ltd (BBRY) Sold 1M BB10 Units To Brightstar [REPORT]

Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) announced early this month that it sold 1 million units of Blackberry 10. However, the Canadian smartphone manufacturer did not reveal the name of the company, but indicated that it was an established partner.

According to report from AllthingsD, the mysterious partner responsible in the huge order is no other than Brightstar.

According to the report, the information was obtained from Detwiler Fenton and some sources familiar with issue confirmed that Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)’s established mystery partner was Brightstar.

One of the sources said, “You’ve got the ‘Bright’ part right,” But you’re a point off.” The source made such comment because AllthingsD speculated that the mystery buyer was Brightpoint.

Sternee Agee analyst Shaw Wu also speculated that that the mystery buyer was from Indonesia because of the company’s strong hold in the country.

 “Our checks indicate the order was from Brightstar, whom Verizon is relying upon to handle the big-box retail and dealer agent channels. It suggests Verizon doesn’t believe this will be a strong seller, since it normally tries to allocate hot product on its own,” said Mark Gerber, managing director at Detwiler Fenton.

Brian Blair, analysts at Wedge Partners told AllthingsD that 80 percent of Brightstar’s revenue over the past two years came from Nokia Corporation (NYSE:NOK) (BIT:NOK1V) (HEL:NOK1V), Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (LON:BC94) (KRX:005930). According to him, it is not surprising that Brightstar ordered 1 million Blackberry 10 smartphones because RIM contributed nearly half of its revenue.

Brighstar and Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) declined to comment of the issue while Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) did not respond to AllthingsD’s request for comment.

On the other hand, analysts at Morgan Stanley commented that Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)’s launching of the Blackberry Z10 in the United States last Friday appears encouraging and in line with their expectations.

The analysts emphasized, “while we are certainly not predicting BB10 becomes a success, in that it sells-out its opening week-end , we suggest that acceptance in the platform should be quite good enough to both hit our model [estimates] and create momentum into the end of the year when we [estimate] BBRY sells 8M BB10 units in its Nov [quarter].”

Morgan Stanley analysts estimated that Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) will would be able to sell ~20-25K units per week through AT&T Inc. (NYSE:T) stores.

The analysts further stated, “Separately, we believe Z10 price reductions at Rogers and Bell last week in Canada are purely promotions rather than a signal the device isn’t selling well.”