Thursday, March 18, 2010

If Palm Falls, Will Anyone Care?


I was roused from my slumber by the news that Palm's smartphone sales haven't been doing so hot.



Specifically, Palm's smartphone sellthrough was just 408,000 units last quarter, down 29% q/q and down 15% y/y. This is worse than expected -- remember, a year ago, the Pre wasn't even on the market yet. Mike Abramsky of RBC was expecting 650,000 units, for instance.

It's kind of apples to oranges (sorry), but in addition to the 7.5 million iPhones in a Quarter that the article references, consider how it's been estimated that Apple sold 120,000 iPads on the first day of pre-orders. That's without people even being able to go to a store and hold one in their hands.

The comments below the Business Insider story are well worth reading for their insight, not least of which is the observation that Palm's advertisements suck. I had to laugh at the radio spots I heard this past Christmas, with a teen voice saying "WOW, a Palm Pre! Thanks Mom!"

In what universe are you going to find a teen who covets a Palm above all other phones?

Sphere: Related Content

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Lee:
I know of only one person that is currently using the palm pre. Not to say that there are not plenty of others users, but it's not that impressive. It's all about Android my friend.
Android is become so big and has a huge following in the short time that it has been here. It is currently in least one phone from every cellphone provider, not to... See More mention there are plenty of REAL TABLETS running it, Microwaves, netbooks, ETC... SO pretty much Android is the one OS that people will and are currently caring about.