BlackBerry Users Jump to iPhone 4S

Whether it's because BlackBerry users want the new iPhone or their anger at a worldwide outage earlier this month, gadget buyer Gazelle reported an 80 percent jump in BlackBerry trades last week.

BlackBerry maker RIM was hit with a global power outage that started Oct. 11 and lasted three days. The company is now being sued by users in a class-action suit, Reuters reported. At that same time, Apple's new iPhone 4S was also launched -- so perhaps it was merely the perfect storm for BlackBerry users to trade platforms.

Gazelle, a company that buys used phones, said it was the highest number of trades it had seen.

Gazelle's "Chief Gadget Officer' Anthony Scarsella told CNET that this is "easily the highest volume of BlackBerry trades ever seen period." That includes a "spike" following this month's outage. "In the grand scheme of BlackBerry growth over the past month, it can be pretty much entirely attributed to the launch of the iPhone 4S," Scarsella said.

Android sellers also jumped 72 percent last week, too, Scarsella said.

The high Android numbers signifies to us that it may not be about anger at BlackBerry, but more about wanting Apple's new iPhone.

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