Motorola Droid Not as Lifeless as First Thought

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Motorola's (MOT Quote) Droid isn't such a dud after all, according to an independent analyst who has been monitoring Verizon's (VZ Quote) closely watched Google (GOOG Quote) phone sales.

Michael Cote of the Cote Collaborative believes Verizon has sold at least 400,000 Droid phones, more than four times as many as BroadPoint AmTech analyst Mark McKechnie's best guess earlier this week. BroadPoint's 100,000 sales estimate for the heavily hyped $200 Google Android-powered phone had been the most widely circulated guess on consumer demand for the Droid to date.

"This is a moving target," Cote says of his larger estimate.

Cote credits McKechnie with having accurate Verizon store Droid allocation numbers, but says that is only part of the picture. Cote, who is a pricing and product strategy consultant to several of the major industry players, says his checks of all Droid outlets including Best Buy (BBY Quote) stores and online sales show a much bigger number.

A Verizon representative declined to comment on the number of Droids sold to date.

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If the 400,000 estimate is true, it would be less troubling than the weak initial sales numbers for the Droid. Motorola's stock has dropped 11% since Verizon started selling the Droid on Friday. The sleepy reception fed concerns that the phone wasn't packing enough appeal to contend with Apple's (AAPL Quote) iPhone at AT&T (T Quote).

Motorola Droid.

Motorola needs to sell more than 1 million Droid phones this year to clear the low bar set by analysts. Unfortunately for Motorola, any new potential iPhone killer is bound to be measured against the iPhone's debut performances.