$99 HP TouchPad Sale Inspires RIM to Slash Playbook Prices?
RIM may be following suit with HP in slashing prices on its Playbook tablet in order to improve sales and generate a buzz for the product.
RIM, who also created the Blackberry, has lost a significant amount of market share in recent years from fierce competition such as Apple and Google.
RIM released the Playbook Tablet in an already Apple dominated market.
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Its iPad has been the tablet leader since it launched in 2010.
HP also had hopes of gaining some market share in the tablet computer market but unfortunately the release of its TouchPad resulted in poor sales.
Weeks after the device’s initial launch, retailers reported back to HP that the TouchPad was barely selling at all.
Some sellers even told the company that they wanted to return their stock.
After receiving that news, HP immediately decided to discontinue the tablet and bow out of the tablet market slashing prices on the remaining HP TouchPads to as low as $99 for the 16GB model.
HP’s tablet quickly sold out everywhere.
RIM’s tablet supplier, Quanta Computer, had shipped 1.5 million Playbooks to the company, according to a report in The Guardian.
RIM only ended up sending out 700,000 Playbooks to its retail partners, which leaves them sitting with 800,000 extra units.
Demand seems low for the product as retailers already started slashing prices on the Playbook.
Staples, who also suffered from immense overstock of HP’s TouchPad, started cutting prices on the Playbook earlier this month in hopes of moving the tablet out the front door more frequently.
Customers can snag a 16GB Playbook for $449 at its retail locations.
But it seems that the tablet market is full of consumers who are only interested in shelling out that amount of cash if they are getting an iPad.
Should RIM slash prices on the Playbook?
Apple may just be too strong to contend with at this time.
