We've yet to see Palm or Sprint confirm these numbers, but a quote from JPMorgan found in a Wall Street Journal roundup this morning asserts that "sales [of the Pre] in the first two days probably exceeded 50,000." The report continues by mentioning that said figure was "aligned with expectations, but probably fell short of the 146,000 reported first-gen iPhone sales" during its opening weekend due to "capacity constraints in manufacturing." By and large, most analysts are deeming the Pre launch a success, though it's hard to say whether the suits at Palm and Sprint agree or disagree. No matter how you slice it, 50,000 units in a single weekend ain't nothing to scoff at, but we'd say next weekend's sales could be even more telling. You know, if anything goes down today at 1:00PM ET.

[Via ZDNet]

Update: A new WSJ report now says analyst ranges are between 50,000 and 100,000. Heck, maybe Palm sold eleventy billion.

See folks, this is the kind of mess you end up with after you gleefully do a deal with the devil. According to a roundup of reports over at Unwired View, three of Russia's major mobile operators could be looking at massive (we're talking hundreds of millions of bucks) fines if they can't sell through their iPhone allotments, and unless a significant market shift happens within the next few months, that situation seems remarkably unlikely. We're told that Vimpelcom pledged to sell 1.5 million iPhones within two years, while Megafon committed to 1 million and MTS the same. Today, just 900,000 iPhones have been imported to Russia, with over half entering the country via grey market channels; we'll let you figure out the math there, but it ain't pretty for Russia's carriers. Of course, we're not shocked in the least -- after getting burnt by a bootable-but-not-usable iPhone over there, are you seriously going to give Apple another chance to win you over?

[Thanks, Staska]

After some rather disheartening (albeit unconfirmed) estimates last week that Nokia's Comes with Music service had snagged only 23,000 subscribers in the United Kingdom, Rob Taylor, vice president of Nokia Music says that the company is pretty "happy" with what its learned there so far. He admitted that the UK launch (the service's first) devices -- the 5310 Xpress Music and the 8GB N95 -- were "slightly out of date" at the time pointing out that the service was doing much better in subsequent markets, which all boast the 5800 as their hero device. Taylor said he also recognized that Nokia needed more retail partners to help move units, and that the company is not "giving up" on the UK as a market for CwM, adding that they'll be bringing the 5800 there in the future. No word on when that might happen yet -- but we're going to keep out eyes peeled for you.

We don't know why T-Mobile isn't trumpeting this, but Deutsche Telekom's Q1 results are out, and the multinational carrier says that over one million G1s have been sold in the US, making up a majority of the 1.5 million 3G devices currently active on T-Mo's network. That's quite an accomplishment in just six months, considering the Android handset launched without nationwide 3G coverage -- it's better now, but we're talking just 21 cities back in October. Of course, a million's just a drop in the bucked compared to the number of Blackberrys, iPhones, and Windows Mobile devices out there, but we've got enough of a soft spot for Android to overlook it -- now let's get some more devices out the door and really boost that marketshare number, shall we?

[Via Electronista]

So, there's good news and bad news here, and we're opting to go against tradition by dishing out the positive first. Nokia just pushed out its Q1 2009 results, and while many firms have been struggling to stay afloat, at least it managed to turn a profit of €122 million ($160 million). That said, it's still looking at a staggering 90 percent drop in profits compared to its first quarter of 2008, where it raked in a mind-boggling €1.222 billion ($1.6 billion). Not surprisingly, sales were also down 27 percent to €9.28 billion ($12.2 billion) from €12.7 billion ($16.7 billion). Of course, Nokia's far from being alone in having to showcase less-than-beautiful Q1 numbers, but in reality, the damage could've been much worse; in fact, shares of the company's stock inched up by 8 percent following the reveal, as many had feared an even more significant decline. All in all, Nokia's still holding strong to a 37 percent market share worldwide, and if CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo has anything to do with it (hint: he does), things should be on the up and up here soon.

[Via BBC]

Palm fans hoping webOS gets the same kind of upgrade attention Apple's been lavishing on the iPhone take note: a deck of presentation slides has revealed plans to recognize revenue from webOS products over two years using subscription accounting, so Palm can "periodically provide new software features free or charge" to customers of its "webOS products, including the recently announced Pre." If that didn't make any sense to the non-suits out there, just remember this bit of number magic is why Apple treats iPhone and iPod touch users differently when it comes to updates -- the iPod doesn't get 3.0 for free because Apple doesn't handle the math this way. At any rate, number crunchers and MAC students can head on down to the read link for lots more invigorating stuff.

Here's a concept: sell cheap, low-margin phones while the economy is in the dumps in order to grow market share. Brilliant, right? Believe it or not, that's the idea that's being pushed around at LG headquarters, as the company has revealed a goal of increasing its global handset market share to at least 10 percent during this year. The company does expect profits to shrink over the course of 2009, but it's still hoping for a high single-digit percent profit margin on mobiles, against 11 percent in 2008. According to Skott Ahn, President and CEO of Mobile Communications at LG: "Developed markets will definitely suffer some contraction, but there's a chance for growth in first-time buyers in emerging markets." So, what does LG really have to do to hit 10 percent? Maintain its sales volume at 2008's level, which was moving some 100.7 million across the globe.

Just under a week ago, we found that RIM had sold its 50 millionth BlackBerry, and while that's all fine and dandy, Wall Street only cares about what you've done for it lately. Thus, traders were none too pleased to hear Research In Motion suggest that its fourth fiscal quarter earnings would come in at the low-end of expectations despite anticipating a higher-than-forecast number of new subscribers. So, what's it all mean? In simple terms, it appears that RIM's making less off of each phone sold, with Todd Coupland of CIBC Capital Markets surmising that the firm may simply be selling more of its lower-priced devices. And honestly, that makes perfect sense given the economy. Still, we can think of much, much darker places for RIM to be in than this, and these days, just coming out in the black is a victory.

[Via Wall Street Journal]

Things may not be entirely awesome for most operators these days, but at least Vodafone's making some cash in this cash-strapped market. According to its most recent quarterly results, the outfit has notched a 14 percent increase in revenue, which was helped by the weak pound and exceptional sales in India. More specifically, it realized sales of £10.47 billion ($14.9 billion) compared to £9.16 billion ($13.06 billion) a year prior. Also of note, Voda was thanking data revenue profusely, as said category rose over 25 percent on an organic basis. Nevertheless, the good news prompted it to raise its expectations for the next quarter, which ain't happening too often these days. All the minutiae is parked in the read link.

Given just how poorly most every other carrier company has been doing, we can't imagine the suits at NTT DoCoMo frowning about this. The Japanese wireless carrier has just outed its earnings for the nine months ending December 2008, and while the tail end was expectedly less-than-awesome, the nine month snapshot wasn't too shabby. Net income slipped 30 percent in October to December to $1.01 billion compared to $1.45 billion in the same window a year earlier, but a 16 percent increase in net profit (from $4.2 billion to $4.8 billion) was realized in the April to December '08 time frame. Moving forward, the company noted that its ongoing strategy was to "cut back on handset subsides and put the savings toward reducing tariffs had helping the company to retain customers" -- a mantra that was shared a few months earlier. For those hungry for more data points, give that read link a poke.

Look out, world -- Apple's on the hunt for that number one spot in worldwide mobile market share! Of course, it's got like a bazillion miles to go before it gets there, but achieving that magical 1 percent is always a day worth tearing up about. According to data in a recent ABI Research study, iPhones now make up 1.1 percent of all cellphones, which is a pretty nice bump from the 0.3 percent share the original iPhone held in 2007. As expected, Nokia's still making everyone else look bad with 38.6 percent, while Samsung (16.2 percent) notched the silver and Motorola / LG tied for third with 8.3 percent apiece. Number lovers can dive into the links below for more where this came from, and feel free to dispute the facts 'til your heart's content down in comments.

[Via Electronista]

Well, it looks like the BlackBerry faithful have come out in full force to snag "Verizon's best-selling device," after all. Despite RIM's nightmarish "new reality," of half-baked firmware and broken dreams, Verizon has made it known that the latest 'Berry has grown to a full 1 million units sold between the November 21st launch and the end of January. Apparently the ever-leaking updates have kept enough people satisfied with the keyboardless device to reach this milestone, so we'll just keep our fingers crossed that the updates don't stop flowing and this powerhouse becomes the titan it has the potential to become.

[Via CrackBerry]

Okay, so we're going on the assumption that the 500,000 figure uttered by Nokia CEO Olli Pekka Kallasvuo during this week's Q4 earnings call was a touch old -- you know, considering that the outfit is now trumpeting the shipment of a cool million. Following a (very!) successful UK launch, Nokia has just shipped its one millionth Tube, which is the handset maker's first mass market touchscreen device. And to think -- it hasn't even debuted in many corners of the globe yet.