iPhone,Blackberry beat Nokia

The chunky computer-like handset 8212; with slide-out keyboard and a touch screen 8212; has found support among hard-core technology specialists but failed to attract a wider audience.

A spokesman for Nokia,the world8217;s top cellphone maker,declined to comment on the sales number,saying the company was pleased with sales,but an executive was more bullish.

Sales have substantially exceeded expectations,Alberto Torres,head of Nokia8217;s solutions business,told the Open Mobile Summit trade conference in London this week.

Nokia has been unable to mount a serious challenge to Apple three years after the iPhone8217;s launch. Its last hit smartphone model,the N95,was unveiled in 2006.

The sales of less than 100,000 N900s compares with sales of 8.75 million iPhones in January-March alone.

The N900,which went on sale last November,is Nokia8217;s first phone running the Linux Maemo operating system,which analysts see as a key for Nokia to regain ground in the coming years.

In February this year Nokia unveiled a plan to merge Maemo with Intel8217;s Moblin operating system.

Nokia sold 50,000 N900s in the last quarter of 2009,and quarterly sales fell in January-March,Gartner statistics showed. Gartner does not track phone sales per model,but as the N900 is the only phone using Maemo,the statistics for operating systems show sales for the model.