Just a few months back, there was talk that Palm could not ramp up production to meet demand levels. Now comes word from Collins Stewart analyst Ashok Kumar claims that Palm has scaled down 2009 production levels of the Palm Pre by 500,000 units. Kumar cites the move is “due to weak demand” and that “momentum appears to have already peaked”.
Sprint nor Palm have disclosed the number of Palm Pre phones sold in the first two months, but many speculate the number to be in the area of 300,000. Kumar did not provide any information that would support the above statements. If you recall, this is the same Ashok Kumar who claimed the Palm Pre was dead on arrival back on May 1st.
[via Barron’s]
“If you recall, this is the same Ashok Kumar who claimed the Palm Pre was dead on arrival back on May 1st.”
He obviously wasn’t one of the thousands waiting outside of the Sprint store for this phone when it came out. When was the last time this happened for any phone other than the iPhone?
I’ve been following the Pre since its unveiling and really hoping it does well, but unfortunately I wouldn’t be surprised if this news were true. I’d never looked forward to another phone as I did this, but never ended up getting it b/c Sprint forced us to switch to the Everything Data plan. I had a grandfathered plan (not SERO), and wasn’t willing to “upgrade”. I assume many SERO customers felt the same way and refused to get away from their plan.
I’m not saying the Pre would’ve topped iPhone sales, but Sprint definitely handicapped its demand. Hopefully it’ll do better under Verizon…
I think they have too much delayed when their competitors were bringing their products to the market on a global scale. It is incredibile that still at this stage main worldwide countrie still do not have the palm
Do these people actually get paid to make these wild claims? Probably has the stock shorted and wants to get the price down because he’s losing his shirt. Here’s my unofficial estimate of the number of units sold and it’s actually based on something….The AccuWeather ap currently has 335,000 downloads–so there have been more than 300,000 Pre’s sold even if the ap has 100% penetration….more likey, I would say that it’s downloaded on somewhere between 65% to 75% of the phones….that puts the told of Pres sold betwen 450-500k.
Quick! Make another ad with that creepy pale girl! Then lets prove that the ad is good, by quoting the person that made the ad saying the ad is good.
Like it or not, the numbers are the numbers. To me it seems that the bulk of the Pres were sold due to pre-release hype (much deserved), and I would venture to say that the vast majority of sales since launch have been due to customer referrals. I blame the advertising. If I’d seen nothing about the Pre, but it’s commercials, I wouldn’t think twice about checking the device out.
Honestly i think what is killing the pre is the lack of applications, this is one of the things that had help the I-phone, if ATT had a better family plan i would had move to ATT to get the I-Phone, they need to release the WEb os now so we can start getting better apps.
“Kumar contends that “due to weakening demand,” Pre production levels for the remainder of the year have been chopped by 500,000 units. (How he knows this, Kumar does not say.)”
So can I be an analyst for a moment? Let me tell you Palm actually started producing GSM units, preparing for the world wide launch. And that’s why they’ll have to hold on with increasing the production of the CDMA model but they hope they will be able to keep up with the demand. (Sorry, can’t tell you how I know but I do. And I’m an analyst, why question me?)