According to RBC Capital Markets’ General Manager Mike Abramsky, RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook sales touched 50,000 on the first day of launch, including pre-orders. This is quite good considering how RIM was facing flak for pushing out an unfinished product. It looks like RIM’s strategy of targeting its BlackBerry customers is working out.
According to Abramsky, RIM might easily sell 600,000 units of the BlackBerry PlayBook in the first fiscal quarter of 2011. And right now, it’s the enterprise owners who’re showing a greater interest in the tab. As the BlackBerry bridge allows BlackBerry owners to share their BlackBerry contacts, email, tasks, and calendar functions with the tab, their interest is justified. Once the update that brings native support of the aforesaid apps to the PlayBook is rolled out (expected soon after launch), consumer sales should also get better.
The BlackBerry PlayBook has outsold the Motorola Xoom and even the Samsung Galaxy Tab in first day sales. None of the three Android tabs come even close to touching the iPad 2 though that sold 500,000 (unofficial numbers) units on the day of launch alone. But we at least have two strong contenders in the Honeycomb arena now.
In the meantime, an Ottawa company has disassembled the Blackberry PlayBook and tallied up the cost of the components. The price amounts to $190 for the 16GB version, $205 for the 32GB version, and $235 for the 64GB version. Keep in mind that this is the bare hardware cost. It does not include the cost of R&D, labor, transport, marketing, and retail. And of course, all businesses keep profit margins as it helps them lower prices later without facing loss. The Ottawa Company has also evaluated the component costs of the iPad 2 and Motorola Xoom as $270 and $278 respectively.
In spite of bad press, RIM’s BlackBerry PlayBook has started out well. RIM’s faith in loyal BlackBerry customers was well founded. Good for them.
Are you going to give the BlackBerry PlayBook a look-see too now?
[via UBM TechInsights]
