Now that we’re neck-deep in tablets that aren’t the iPad, a funny thing is happening: iPad competitors have been slicing and dicing prices like mad. It’s far from a surprise, as it’s been less than a banner year for the first wave of “iPad Killers,” all of which earned much lower profits than projected and failed to move as much stock as predicted. That means overstock, kids… and when you’ve got overstock, you need to get rid of it ASAP.
Digitimes pointed this out about non-iPad tablet sales:
Motorola, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Asustek and Acer have all recently reduced their tablet prices with the lowest price currently at US$370; however, with their inventory will become harder to digest, the sources believe there will be at least two waves of price cuts from the end of September to the year-end holiday, reducing the tablet average price level to US$350 and may even drop further to US$300 in the future.
And AppleInsider added a few interesting tidbits as well:
“…sources believe there will be “at least two waves of price cuts from the end of September to the year-end holiday,” reportedly bringing the average price level to $350 and possibly as low at $300 in the future. By comparison, Apple sells its entry-level Wi-Fi iPad 2 for $499.”
And in case you were wondering about the TouchPad, it’s not doing great either: A mere one month after release, and HP slashed the price by $100. It was supposed to be a sale, but the price stuck.
RIM and HTC are expressing hope of a 2012 rebound for the PlayBook and Flyer (respectively), but it might be time to call a spade a spade and concede that the iPad (with roughly 9.25 units sold in Q2 alone) owns the tablet market at the moment. Perhaps instead of talking about how a company’s tablet will trump the iPad, watching it fail to do so, and then trying to convince the market that the same tablet will somehow come back to do it next year… maybe it’s time to go back to the drawing board and ask “Okay, guys. We lost 2011. What did we do wrong?”
Source: Digitimes
Via: AppleInsider
