RIM trims internal PlayBook sales estimates, report claims

By Zach Epstein on Jun 22, 2011 at 10:44 AM

Retail June 22, 2011 at 10:44 AM

Despite respectable sales in its first quarter of availability, RIM has reportedly slashed internal sales estimates for the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. RIM announced during its earnings call last week that it had shipped 500,000 PlayBook tablets to retail partners during the fiscal first quarter of 2012. The figure didn’t quite match the 1 million mark that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab crossed after just two months, but it outsold Motorola’s XOOM tablet and beat estimates issued by several analysts. According to DigiTimes, however, RIM had very high hopes for its virgin tablet offering. The Waterloo, Ontario-based company had an internal goal of shipping between 2.4 and 2.5 million units during the second quarter. In light of lower than expected sales between the tablet’s launch in mid-April and the end of the fiscal first quarter, RIM has reportedly revised its second-quarter estimates down to 800,000 – 900,000 units.

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Tags:: BlackBerry, BlackBerry Playbook, Market Share, Playbook, Projections, QNX, RIM, Sales, Sales Estimates, Shipments, Tablet, Tablet Market, Tablets

85 Comments

http://twitter.com/mistercarter7 Mike Gonzalez

i had the chance to try a Playbook yesterday and it is really fluid, much more than Android Honeycomb, but that 7 inch display is just too tiny… it looked more like a digital photo frame

Anonymous

i guess to each their own. I love my Asus Transformer, i tried the playbook at the store and didnt do anything for me at all. Also as you said the 7inch display sucks
QNX

The Playbook is the Best tablet ever made. If you disagree, you are wrong.

http://twitter.com/mistercarter7 Mike Gonzalez

i think it’s a great tablet, but it must have a 10inch display, 3G connection without needing a Blackberry!, own email app, own contacts app if RIM want it to have its part of maket share… i mean, it’s too dependent of a Blackberry, without it all you can do is playing games and a few more things

QNX is nice and i cant wait to see it implemented on Blackberry phones
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JNKVTT7PJMXPYP2GVCIERBQQCU Andrew

Exactly. QNX isn’t a bad platform but the playbook just wasn’t ready. It was missing all the aforementioned things and they are deal breakers. BB diehards just got one so they can pledge their allegiance to RIM. Many of them were the same folk last year when Apple announced the iPad who said “a tablet is stupid…. I only need my laptop and my blackberry”. But as soon as RIM announces a tablet, the idea of owning one suddenly isn’t so dumb.
http://twitter.com/mistercarter7 Mike Gonzalez

@yahoo-JNKVTT7PJMXPYP2GVCIERBQQCU:disqus i know, i’ve been a blackberry user before (BB Bold 9000 and 9700 and Storm2 9520) and now i’m using an iPhone 4, so if i wanted to have a fully functional Playbook i have to switch back to a Blackberry phone too and i dont think that’s fair, RIM walled its Playbook garden to the already BB users and that’s what’s hurting the sales
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=618975980 Kevin Collazo

I honestly don’t believe the PlayBook was meant for anyone else other than BlackBerry users. RIM didn’t put out any phones of substance after the Torch. That only came out for AT&T in the U.S. and others in Canada. So instead of giving a new phone with ridiculous specs that BlackBerry users have never seen, they gave them the PlayBook that they could easily pair whatever BlackBerry they had to it and enjoy the benefits.

It was very short-sited on their part. If they wanted to get into the tablet market, they should have simply done it right from jump and put all the native core apps that consumers would expect and more. Instead, we get an unfinished product, hardly any phones worth mentioning, a year wasted, and now the company is under fire for basically ignoring what consumers have been demanding. Let me say that again… This company that is so focused on research, development, and checks and balances…ignored the simple notion of consumer demand.

While I am one of those BlackBerry users, I’m not of the normal pack. I love SurePress, and I do enjoy the Torch, but I can’t sit here and tell you all that they [RIM] don’t infuriate me. They most certainly do. They need to come out with the new product line that appeases the consumer masses, but at double the speed. I’m not talking about minor upgrades to what the Torch has now. They need to make the best smartphone possible- Not just the best BlackBerry to date.
Anonymous

I’ve never been wrong in my life. I thought I was wrong once. But I was mistaken. True story™©®
QNX

you are wrong.
Anonymous

Nicely played. You thought you were wrong but you weren’t really. So you were actually wrong about your belief that you were wrong, which you weren’t. So, do the 2 wrongs make it right? If so, does this mean that the mistaken belief that you made a mistake never happened? Paradox is fun.
Banofbros

This is the second time you’ve been wrong.
Anonymous

Not possible. True story ™©©
David

troll
http://profiles.google.com/pmendez.hou Pedro Mendez

QNX is right on man! and when the software QNX is on the BB handhelds its going to on like Donkey Kong!

JustaTrimPlease

Trim? Trim? Note to self – If a cut from 2.4m to 800k is viewed as a trim in Canada never get a hair cut there.

Banofbros

LOL.

Mksl202

Poor RIM. Trim The Fat. Fire The fat Execs at the Top!!!
http://marcparadise.com/ Marc Paradise

“The figure didn’t quite match the 1 million mark that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab crossed after just two months” To complete that comparison, note that the first fiscal quarter only included 6 weeks of availability and no international release.

Also, my usual whining about single-sourced unconfirmable rumors
Anonymous

Congrats to sammy on 1 million sold in two months. The xoom was dead long ago you’ll see them at the salvation army, good will store and dollar stores in the fall. It’s funny that BB thought they were going to sell 2.5 million playbooks in a quarter. Who do they think they are Apple? Never mind I forgot these were quarter numbers not weeks.

Anonymous

No, that’s 1 million shipped to Retailers, not actually SOLD!!! The 2 are completely different.

Banofbros

Maybe R.I.M. should SHIP every Playbook in their warehouse to try to cook the books.

Anonymous

It was once kinda funny to see what was happening to RIM because of such poor management, but now it’s just getting sad. Now I feel bad for them.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JNKVTT7PJMXPYP2GVCIERBQQCU Andrew

I only feel bad for their employees. They are getting laid off for the incompetence of the execs. Meanwhile, Apple is building this futuristic looking campus to have even more employees.

Retro

Apple ripped off the design from the Trade Federation’ ships (StarWars).

We can only hope once its filled with “employee’s” the “campus” lifts off into space towards a distant galaxy.
BurleyShells

lmao
Anonymous

Watch what you wish for. If that happens how long do you think it’ll be before the peaceful people of Alderan are staring down the barrel of the iDeathStar?
Banofbros

I hear all the R.I.M. execs use iPads.

Anonymous

Now amateur hour is really over.

Oh wait no it’s not, companies are still making iClones running Android.
QNX

The Playbook is the Best tablet ever made. If you disagree, you are wrong.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JNKVTT7PJMXPYP2GVCIERBQQCU Andrew

Yeah if it had email, calendar, BBM, let’s see maybe not have to be able to be tethered to a crapberry for basic feature, apps, you know, silly things like that.
Anonymous

I disagree.
Anonymous

It appears RIM has somehow discovered the magic kool-aid formula that apple has been using. True story™©®
Anonymous

Lmao, they’re not flying off store shelves and return rate is pretty high I have heard, I guess developers along with 99.9.9 of the world doesn’t agree with you. Only way you can find that turkey attractive is if you haven’t spent quality time with the other products. All these tablets have issues even the mighty iPad with it’s worse than terrible cameras but dude when it gets to the playbook I’m just speechless and really don’t know where to start. I just hope it doesn’t meet the fate of the Storm 1 & 2.

Anonymous

2.5 million…that’s funny. Who does RIM think they are? Apple?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JNKVTT7PJMXPYP2GVCIERBQQCU Andrew

If that is true, they were being unrealistic to expect that many to be shipped. They don’t get it. People who want tablets get an iPad. Not that the iPad is perfect or the best but it’s the truth. People only buy Android tablets just so they can say they have a tablet but they hate Apple so much they won’t buy an iPad. People don’t care about the playbook. RIM wasted their time on it and should have been working hard to have a QNX handheld this year. You don’t suffer in one market and then ignore it and jump into a market that you have no shot in.

Banofbros

Companies are making tablets to complement their phones. To this end I think R.I.M. did an admiral job.

They made a tablet with lagging sales to complement their phones that have lagging sales.

It all makes sense if you look at it from their game plan.

Anonymous

Patiently waiting for all of the Apple and Android D-bags to ambush this thread with their hate. Happy Groundhogs Day!

Anonymous

Wait no more this Apple d-bag is here to bring on the hate.

Anonymous

You guys never disappoint.
Anonymous

U lost all credibility when u played the D-bag card. True story™©®

drew dogg

BGR is a bully… F-in leave BB alone.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JNKVTT7PJMXPYP2GVCIERBQQCU Andrew

RIM sucks

QNX

andrew sucks
Anonymous

QNX sucks. True story™©®
Anonymous

Yes, it sucks to you personally. I’m sure that’s what you meant.
Banofbros

If that were true, then they would have a service people would actually pay for.

anDROIDfan

Clearly BGR hates RIM. That’s why they used the word “trimmed” to describe the change to their quarterly shipment goal from 2.4m to 0.9m. The financial papers were a lot kinder. You should read their articles if you’d like to read warm and fuzzy articles about RIM.
Banofbros

Leave them alone? They are laying face down in the street, someone should be thumping on their chest trying to revive them!!!

Oh, wait, I get it – you just want them to die of natural causes and go away.

Anonymous

Of course I agree with the cut in production, that is just sound business. The problem I still have the problem with is management at the top. In the conference call these guys admitted that they “rushed the PlayBook to market” even though it wasn’t finished. They believed they saw an opportunity and they had to take advantage ASAP. They then spent ten minutes explaining why they STILL felt like they did the right thing.

A lot of people are losing their jobs and a lot more are going to lose them in the future at RIM. It is a sad situation and it is only going to get worse.

Banofbros

You don’t hear “sound business” and “RIM” mentioned together very often these days.

http://twitter.com/robalanstewart Rob Stewart

I got a Playbook on launch week and really like it a lot. I find the UI to be clean and elegant, and I enjoy using it. While the 7″ screen is smaller, I really enjoy the smaller size; this is a personal preference thing. All that said, The Playbook’s biggest problem now is a dearth of decent Playbook apps. While the Honeycomb tables don’t have many dedicated apps, these tablets benefit from having lots of Android phone apps that at least work for the most part even if they aren’t really optimized for the larger form factor.
Anonymous

“Despite respectable sales in its first quarter of availability”

“Respectable sales?” Says who? RIM said it *shipped* 500,000 PlayBooks. I don’t believe we have any idea how many they actually *sold*. Or did I miss something in their quarterly report?

With RIM pulling a Microsoft and announcing *shipping* numbers and not *sold* numbers, you know the news can’t be good.

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_JNKVTT7PJMXPYP2GVCIERBQQCU Andrew

And they know exactly how many devices went to end users. Every time someone activates one, RIM would know. It’s amazing how they can know the number of BB sold but not the number playbooks. That just doesn’t make sense. And I’m sure they get sales reports from all their sales channels. Why wouldn’t a manufacturer in 2011 not have access to that information? They do, but it’s not good.

Anonymous

Well, that’s not entirely true. If someone buys a Blackberry phone and only activate a voice plan, RIM would not see it in their system. Only the one that are activated with BIS/BES (or other Blackbery services) would be seen. Since PB is Wi-Fi with no Blackberry service, I’m not sure how RIM would be tracking sales to the end-customer. That said, I suspect RIM kind of knows how many units went to the end-customers.

The Hater

Any chance these assholes get to bash RIM, they jump all over it. If it’s not for you, keep your biased mouth shut. Continue watching movies and playing games on your i(insert device here) and I’ll continue enjoying those things on my gigantic, wall mounted flat screen, blu-ray player, and video game console of my choice, because my primative BlackBerry keeps my business running well enough to afford those things.

Anonymous

Wow. That’s amazing!!! So if I get a BB I can have all the stuff u have? A TV, blu ray and game console is about $8000 max. And that’s being generous. get over yourself u fucken gimp. True story™©©

The Hater

Yeah, that’s what I was saying, Scrotum. All of those things come with a BlackBerry…it’s a mail-in rebate.
What comes with purchasing an iPhone, besides becoming hypnotized and limp-wristed?
Anonymous

Mail in rebate huh? That’s about the only way u could possibly get
anyone to buy a BB in the near future. True story™©®

P.S. Suk ma —-> (_)_)////////////////D
Anonymous

Hey I have all that PLUS a Great Surround sound setup where I have hear Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio with those Blu-Ray Discs!!! With a choice of over 700+ DVD, HD DVD and my growing Blu-Ray Collection!!! Yet not a RIM device in site. I know 1 person who has one, and it’ll be his last! I don’t know anyone with Android, not that I have a problem with that as competition is a good thing, but everyone I know have a Iphone. I’m sure for others they and everyone they know have Android(Hard to believe but OK) that’s fine also, but in either case, RIM is few and far between, and now with imessager coming, even less of a reason to hold on to your RIM device. Whats left?

By the Way, Shipping 1 Million Tablets to Retailers, is not Selling and SOLD 1 Million Tablets.
The Hater

Wow…that’s some nice shit, I should have put that on my list as well. I think you misunderstood what I was saying. If I want to watch movies and play games, I have other means to do so. My phone is great for what I use it for but may not be great for what you use your phone for. I just hate when the Apple/Android people turn this into some sort of competition like they made some great accomplishment by purchasing a product that they had nothing to do with. It’s always you guys bashing BlackBerry and their customers, I never see it the other way around.

Zac Caslin

You make that much from selling your sister on the street? Wow good for you.

Anonymous

Mike’s and Jim’s business strategy is be real enthusiastic and positive about their product and maybe people with think they are right. Unfortunately sprinkling powdered sugar on shit doesn’t make it a donut. True story™©®

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR6HpRLyzMY Walter Sobchak

No but curling it into a ring and frying it does.
True story™®©

Anonymous

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Anonymous

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register the [True story] trademark.

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story] trademark and also constitutes a reproduction or imitation
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constitute an infringement of our registered and common law rights.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR6HpRLyzMY Walter Sobchak

Just like an apple fanboy, steal something and say you started it.
true story ™®©
Anonymous

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True story™©®
Anonymous

Dear Sir

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True story™©®

Max

Well well well..where are you BB Morons now? Huh? When the going gets tough, you morons get going. Can’t take the heat. Your little device is going to fail. You thought 1 mil? Are you f’ing kidding me? Where in your deranged peabrain did you get that figure? You idiots are stuck in 2001 and BBM. This device is tiny. I used one and it was a disgrace. It does indeed look like a digital picture frame but it probably has 1/3 the computing power of a digital picture frame. Even that cool Samsung Refrigerator with built in display is more useful, even at 600 lbs.

The Hater

Is this Steve Jobs? Because you obviously had something to do with the way your beloved device was built. Or are you just a consumer who spent 5 or 6 hundred dollars on a device? Congrats Max…your a fkn genius.

Anonymous

A iphone costs pretty much the SAME as a high end Android phone!!!! Who pays $500-$600 for a phone unless it’s unlocked. It’s been $199, or $299 signing up for under 2 years, Ummm Same prices as some Android phones are now going for!
The Hater

Ummm…no shit, asshole. Wasn’t this article about the Playbook. I was referring to the iPad.

Steel

You always see that reference about the Playbook selling well initially, but that’s no surprise. RIM has a business audience and those guys were desperate for the latest piece of tech, and since they can probably expense the playbook, it sold well. Now that base is largely exhausted, so what will it do? the same thing it does w/ consumers: Fail hard.
hmmm

I really like the playbook…however, maybe they would sell more if it had some more important features that people get tablets for

Anonymous

First off, a Tablet is pretty much worthless no matter how GREAT it is Spec wise without great 3rd party software and hardware support. It has none. Far worse then Android. You have your basic Web browser, and E-mail program and a few other minor things, then what?? Any Netflix? Hulu+, Games, Great utilities? Anything??? A Smartphone App Blown up larger to fit a Tablet screen isn’t the SAME THING as a program designed for a Tablet where they can make much better use of the larger screen. Even Fandroids don’t seem to get this!!! Sure the ipad can blow up iphone screen to double the size and run them, but there are so many programs Designed for the ipad and it’s larger screen. That ONLY run on the ipad, or both with completely different screens.

I want RIM out there. More Competition, but it’s like they aren’t really trying. Thought they had it all locked in and didn’t Innovate and now look at them!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000722296108 Herman Guerra

They should trim the price too.
Max

Haven’t seen one person out in the wild with a Playbook. Not one. Maybe I need to go to a few resale shops, though. I’ll probably see a dude in pink parachute pants carrying one. Oh, and leg warmers.
Bob Motown

I picked up a PlayBook at ORD (Delta sucks) and I was really impressed. It made my iPad 2 look horrible
Anonymous

How can BGR say that the Playback outsold the Xoom when the only numbers we have for the Playback are how many shipped not sold?
Anonymous

And there was time when I wanted a BB tablet.
Guest

The sooner they fking release the Android/Blackberry App Players the better their prospects are.
I have no idea why the wait if they could show it in BBWC.

If it’s were for anything other than technical reasons (e.g. a strategic move hoping to boost native app developments) it would be suicidal.
Banofbros

R.I.M. wouldn’t be scaling back sales estimates now IF they had made the Playbook a fully functional tablet. Yet another dumb move by management. If R.I.M. can’t get their shinola together they won’t be able to weather out the “storm.”

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