BlackBerry Storm Sales Strong - Prices Rising - Shortage Continues

Verizon has not released any sales numbers yet, analysts estimate sales of the BlackBerry Storm to be 100,000 to 120,000 units.

Verizon website traffic peaked and as noted in articles we ran on Saturday, online sales are shipping by December 15. Sales associates in stores on the East Coat had trouble activating new BlackBerry Storms.

Many stores sold out, causing customers to be frustrated. Online blog complainers noted that after waiting in line with 100 other people, if the Verizon store was sold-out, and a new shipment was delivered in the afternoon, then someone who walked in that store in the afternoon could get a Storm while morning line-waiters had to wait for home delivery. They thought the system was unfair.

RIM stock fell to the lowest price in a week after BMO Capital Markets reported it may sign up fewer subscribers than forecasted, because of the shortage reducing the gain of subscribes to  2.78 million short of the  forecast of 2.9 million.

It looks like Wirefly has raised the price of the BlackBerry Storm to $179.99 for new customers. When we called, their sales associate said that they ran out the day before the Storm came out.  They were hard to get into stock and after they received more, they ran out again. Right now as of Tuesday, November 25,  2:13 pm PST, Wirefly does have some BlackBerry Storms in stock. Wirefly was offering a slightly better price.