The Verge’s Dante D’Orazio:

The report in question comes from Detwiler Fenton analyst Jeff Johnston, who wrote: “We believe key retail partners have seen a significant increase in Z10 returns to the point where, in several cases, returns are now exceeding sales, a phenomenon we have never seen before.” BlackBerry immediately refuted those claims yesterday in a statement, saying that its return rates in both the US and around the world “are in line with or better than our expectations.”

Seems to be a lot of chatter these days about these analysts and where they get their information. Some seem to believe it’s from their butts. Interesting, if true.

BlackBerry did not address another negative report released yesterday, by ITG analyst Joe Fersedi, who wrote that the Z10 launch “started poorly and weakened significantly as the days passed.”

So, based on BlackBerry’s responses we can estimate that sales of the Z10 are poor and weakening but returns of units purchased to date are not outpacing current sales. Good to know.