Apple’s iPad Shipments Dwarf RIM’s PlayBook Numbers 19 to 1 [Report]

We knew Apple’s iPad dwarfed RIM’s PlayBook, but now the image seems even more lopsided, thanks to shipping numbers from a group of analysts. The Cupertino, Calif. company shipped 19 iPads each time the BlackBerry maker shipped one of its rival devices. Little wonder RIM, facing financial scrutiny Thursday, is back concentrating on its smartphones.

RIM sold 490,000 of the seven-inch PlayBook tablets versus 9.25 million iPads shipped during the previous quarter, according to several analyst polled by Bloomberg. While a shipped device does not always result in a sale, Apple executives have said they were selling every iPad they could get their hands on. As a result of RIM’s poor showing, analysts reduced their full-year PlayBook sales estimate to 2.2 million.

“RIM overplayed the PlayBook in terms of its sales and prospects,” Needham & Co. analyst Charlie Wolf told the news site.

Keep in mind, that’s shipping, not sales. If we saw the sales numbers, they’d be even more bleak.

The Waterloo, Ont.-based firm probably will report declining revenue in the second quarter, making it a successful launch of new BlackBerry smartphones all the more important. One hitch: the new BlackBerries are powered by RIM’s powered by the QNX operating system likely won’t appear until mid-2012. That’s enough time for Apple to introduce its iPhone 5, as well as other Android alternatives. Anyone noticing a pattern?

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