Samsung Galaxy Tab sold just 20,000 out of 1m shipped, claims rival
Lenovo boss says that trying to undercut Apple means losing money as Chinese company offers tablet close to iPad pricing
David Meyer, IFA, Berlin
guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 September 2011 18.31 BST
A rival has claimed that the Samsung Galaxy Tab sold just 20,000 out of 1m units shipped
An executive at Android tablet maker Lenovo claims that Samsung sold only 20,000 of the 1m tablets that it shipped last year as it tried to "buy share" from market leader Apple.
The dramatically low figure suggests that Samsung's efforts with its first 7-inch tablet, launched exactly a year ago, fell far short of targets.
Andrew Barrow, director of consumer products and pricing for Lenovo Western Europe, told the Guardian that the problem with trying to substantially undercut the price of the Apple iPad, of which around 30m have so far been sold, was that "any [manufacturer] would be giving money away."
Samsung said at the end of 2010 that it had shipped 1m of its 7-inch Galaxy devices, which were seen as the first real Android competitors to Apple's iPad. However, according to Barrow, Samsung only sold 20,000 of the tablets. Samsung had not returned a request for comment on Barrow's claim by the time of publication.
Samsung has never given details of the actual sales it has made in the tablet market. In an earnings call at the end of January, Samsung executives admitted that the company had shipped far more tablets than had actually been sold, saying that the latter figure was "quite smooth" – a puzzling phrase that was never explained.
guardian.co.uk |
