BBRY: Evercore Ups Estimates, Despite Reservations, as Z10 Debuts in U.S.

Shares of BlackBerry (BBRY) are higher by 13 cents, or 0.8%, at $16.29, as the company’s Z10 handset, the first to run its new BB10 operating system, goes on sale at retail in the U.S. at AT&T — a Verizon Communications (VZ) unit is coming March 28th — and analysts try to gauge what it means for the company.

CNBC‘s correspondent, reporting from “An AT&T store” somewhere in Manhattan, noted 12 units had been sold there so far today, while adding that the device has also been on offer through pre-sales, and so “some sales may be arriving the in mail.”

The debut is causing some to raise numbers. Mark McKechnie with Evercore Partners today reiterates an Underweight rating and an $8 price target, but he also raised his February fiscal Q4 estimate to $2.9 billion in revenue and a net loss of just 16 cents versus a prior estimate of $2.8 billion and a 23-cent loss, on sales of 1.2 million BB10 handsets, up from 1 million previously.

For this quarter, his estimate goes $3.3 billion and a 7-cent loss from a prior $3 billion and a 19-cent loss. That’s on sales of 3.2 million BB10-based handsets, up from his prior 2.6 million estimate.

McKechnie thinks there will be no concrete signs of how the Z10 is doing for another couple months: “We expect the stock to remain volatile into the U.S. launch of its Z10/Q10 models and suspect the quarter and outlook will be “OK” on the channel fill with no real end-market demand reads until later in the May quarter.”

Tavis McCourt of Raymond James reiterates a Market Perform rating and a “valuation range” of $7 to $17, based on his “sum of the parts” model. McCourt thinks the company sold 1 million BB10 devices in the fiscal Q4 ending last month, at an average price of $450, and 8 million devices for the quarter in total. His financial estimate is higher than McKechnie’s, at $3 billion in revenue and a 17-cent loss.

As for the U.S., it’s a tough market, he observes, despite record initial sales in Canada:

AT&T has announced that it will launch the Z10 on March 22 with Verizon following soon after on March 28. Sprint will not carry the Z10 and wait till the Q10 launch in June. We believe BBRY�s launch in the strategically important US market will run into intense competition as Samsung, Apple, HTC and Nokia refresh their line-ups.

McCourt thinks it would be good if the company could offer a BB10 device that’s lower cost, like the existing “Curve” line of BlackBerrys:

According to Gartner, BBRY�s emerging market shipments declined -33% y/y and -20% q/q for C4Q12, a worrisome sign given that emerging markets have been BBRY�s biggest subscriber growth driver in recent times. We think a BB10 Curve would give BBRY a competitive boost in emerging markets, but there has been no word yet on a BB10 Curve. In a recent interview, a European BBRY MD was quoted as saying that entry level tier BB10 won�t arrive until next year.

Here’s McCourt’s chart of how the smartphone competition is shaping up at the moment (click for larger image):