Motorola rolled out its Honeycomb flagship tablet with much fanfare, but now it looks like that yet another iPad killer has bit the
dust. Some smartpant analyst with Deutsche Bank deduced that the US company has sold 100,000 tablets so far. Yes, you are read it right, it's not a million but one -tenth of that. Granted that the product hit the market only 42-odd days back, but let's not forget original iPad took only 80 days to sell 3 million tablets. So, does this ring a death knell for Xoom?
Let's not be so quick to write-off this product. First off, Nobody expected Xoom to replicate iPad's success. Whether we like it or not, Apple has a cult following and that ensures instant success for any product Apple chooses to throw in the market. Second, despite its superior configuration, Xoom's initial price of $800 was a big deterrent. Now the company has moved in the right direction and has brought Xoom prices in line with iPad. And there is another factor of Wi-Fi only tablets which the company has started selling only a couple of days back. Coupled with international sales, the introduction of Wi-Fi only tablets will certainly help Motorola in reaching respectable sales figure.
Anyways, if Motorola wasn't already feeling bad with its tablet sales figure, then probably the shipment figures for iPad 2 will do the trick. A report claimed that Apple suppliers are estimated to have shipped between 2.4 million and 2.6 million so far. Although, these are shipment figures and not the sales numbers, but since iPad 2 is more or less sold out, we can easily surmise that actual sales figures are not far off. Apple launched its tablet on March 11 in the US and has so widely surpassed Xoom that even comparing them seems like an exercise in futility.
All is not lost for Motorola. Since it has reduced the price of its tablet, it is easy to see that it was earning fat margins on originally priced tablets. Even if Xoom did not exactly turn out to be a super star, it sure added some precious money to the company's bottom line. Let's wait to see if Wi-Fi only model weaves some magic for the troubled company.