Amid the poor revues and analyst concerns, Research in Motion’s PlayBook tablet has at least one vocal supporter, electronics retail giant Best Buy. Without offering any hard numbers, the retail chain announced its sales of the tablet “far exceeded” its expectations.
“We’re finding that customers are even more interested in purchasing once they’ve tested the PlayBook in the store,” BestBuy said in a statement. The positive statement from an important big-box retailer comes as RIM tries to rally the troops at its annual BlackBerry World Conference this week.
In April, Jeffries analyst Peter Misek estimated RBC sold between 45,000 to 50,000 PlayBook units on the first day of availability. At least half of that figure came from pre-orders. RBC analyst Mike Abramsky credited the PlayBook for a stronger launch that Motorola’s Xoom or Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, but questioned whether that high level of demand would last.
The alt tablets, such as the PlayBook, may be benefitting from the scarcity of Apple’s iPad 2 in some retail locations. A cursory check found some Upstate New York Best Buy stores had long waiting lists and only a handful of iPad 2 shipments per week. Online, the Apple Store is reporting a one to two week wait for shipping.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
32 responses to “Best Buy: RIM PlayBook Sales ‘Far Exceed’ Expectations”
Expected to sell 10 units, sold 20.
Well if your expectation is to sell only and you sell 2 then yeah that’s double your expectations. Ain’t low expectations awesome?
Poor “revues”?
What did the so-called experts think so many Blackberry users were hanging on to their old, outdated devices? Because they love their “Crackberry” and don’t want to change! Now they can stick with RIM and still upgrade, and they’ll probably do it fast.
You use this word – I do not think it means what you think it does….
re·vue? ?
[ri-vyoo]
–noun
1.
a form of theatrical entertainment in which recent events, popular fads, etc., are parodied.
2.
any entertainment featuring skits, dances, and songs.
I’m not claiming this is typical but was at my local “large office supply chain” this weekend and wanted to try out the Xoom and Playbook that were on end displays. No instructions and they were either not on or broken. No salesperson there to help and my daughter and I experimented for 10 min trying in vain to start them or find a home button or get either of the two buttons on the Xoom to do something. A light would flicker briefly but that was it. No luck at all with the Playbook. After a short while we walked away incredulously.
This certainly made me laugh as I pictured a future staff meeting at that store where the discussion centered around how they couldn’t understand why sales were so low. Maybe Motorola or Blackberry could see if the Apple store would sell their tablets? :-)
I went to a big box retail store (not best Buy) on the first day of Playbook launch . Big posters on windows. Prominent display booth for the Playbook in the front and centre of the big electronics section. Saw Not one person touching the Playbook, zero.
Go to an Apple store and you can see people three deep trying to get their hands on a an iPad to test.
Best buy is just B.S. Remember when they were caught withholding iPads (probably in a desperate attempt to clear their Xooms and Galaxy Tabs) they had to announce they were holding their iPads for a (fake) promotion. (why does anybody need a promotion to sell stuff that has a waiting list?).
same thing here: no one is buying Playbooks and they are (again) trying to drum up heat.
Best Buy is pimping the PlayBook hard.
I dunno, I haven’t seen any dancing or singing, but the rest of this product launch has felt sort of like a comedy skit.
Best Buy: RIM PlayBook Sales ‘Far Exceed’ Expectations. They expected someone to steal the display unit, then the next day a drunk came in a bought 5 of em thinking it was the iPad 2.
What! They sold another one?
I’m a MAC user and have been for well over a decade but I’m not a MAC zombie like so many others — I buy what works (including the iPhone). The iPad is too big. Most of my friends who bought them loved them for a while but now leave them at home and don’t play with them much unless they are in front of the tv on the sofa and are too lazy to turn on their powerbooks. I actually like the Playbook — it is much more portable and easier to handle – once ‘line 2’ becomes available on the Playbook I will ditch both the iPhone and AT&T. If it wasn’t for my need of Photoshop, I would ditch my MAC too — we need to move with the times and I am not loyal to any company that is not producing what I want and need.
I will be curious to see the actual sales and the return ratios.
Truth is, I want this to sell fairly well. Yeah it’s great that the ipad is number one hands down. But not when the reason is because there’s nothing else out there. I want to see some real choices in the market and see what happens.
I actually held and played with a RIM for a few days last week. My initial impressions were… unimpressed.
The interface is confusing. The swiping to get in and out of apps is confusing, and I frequently miss-swiped.
The power button– so recessed you need a pen to turn the unit off and on.
The camera is horrible– almost to the point of making me wonder why they would include something that looks like a cell phone camera from 8 years ago.
More than anything, though, the unit is slow to respond. I couldn’t help but think how much more responsive my iPad 2 is to the touch.
Not ready yet.
I’m seeing a lot of comments about the BlackBerry Playbook at the moment.
No offence, but I really couldn’t give a fuck. This site is call Cult Of MAC, not Cult Of Mac*
*With a side of BlackBerry.
I’m not hating on the BlackBerry, I have one and love it for what it does, but if I wanted to read about Playbooks, I would go and visit crackberry.com.
I see the sheep are bleeting.
Face it fanbois, the iSlab are only for sheep,