Pré sales plunge after iPhone 3GS arrival, analyst claims
Soggy summer predicted
Sales of Palm's Pré are slumping, a US financial analyst has claimed, but the good news is that may make the smartphone cheaper to buy.
Morgan Joseph analyst Ilya Grozovsky this week told investor clients that his checks suggest July Pré sales of just 100,000 units - half of the number be believes were sold in June.
Based on what his sources suggest, Grozovsky said he expects Pré sales to fall further this month. He cut his Q3 sales forecast from 400,000 Prés to 350,000. Sales of the new smartphone will have harmed sales of Palm's other offerings.
Barron's notes that Grozovsky has always had lower Pré sales expectations that Wall Street as a whole does
“Should sales prove to be in line with our checks," Grozovsky said, "we believe price cuts may be looming going into the holiday season in an effort to spur holiday sales of the Pré."
Good news for buyers, that, but not for Palm's sales figures.
The Pré is currently only available in the US from carrier Sprint, but it's expected to go on sale on the O2 network here in the Autumn - but not on 30 October, the operator said this week. ®
iPhone vs Pre The celebrity smartphone deathmatch
COMMENTS
O2 = FAIL, poor Pre doomed :o(
I'm an iPhone owner too, I came over from T-Mobile and an N95 for the 3GS. I was shocked at the differences between the two networks.
On T-Mobile I always got full 3G speeds and the latency was good enough (<100ms) to use my phone as a modem and indulge in a bit of online gaming from time to time and downloads fast enough to make my friends in the countryside get jealous about. O2 in contrast is abysmal, at London Bridge my phone claims it has full 3G signal, yet when I run a speed test app I get download speeds that modems would be embarrassed about - 48kbps is a regular result and latencies measured in seconds.
So to see the Pre being released on O2 exclusively makes me very sad, I really wanted to see people pick this up and get the support behind it to give Apple a run for it's money (it needs it with the dire state of the locked down app store et all), but now it's coming to the sub-standard O2 network where the iPhone is available anyway (which will surely put a dent in possible sales - and no I'm not suggesting the iPhone is better, but the popularity/brand is...), I just can't see how the results are really going to differ to the ones suggested in the article.
Pity
It's s pity, really, as this seemed to be, at long last, a real competitor for the iPhone.
From an Apple fanboi and iPhone owner.
Expletives deleted
I had to use o2 because I have an iPhone. I also got a (then) cheap home broadband connection from them.
Just a personal perspective ... I have found no problem with 3G (but I don't get around a lot) and o2's Customer Service has been second to none, provided you can understand Scots accents. My comparisons are with Orange, T-Mobile (they were good, too), and Vodaphone.
I suppose it's just a case of personal experiences.
O2
Why the fuck do all the decent new handsets get O2 exclusive? They are the worst fucking provider in the country with the lowest fucking 3G coverage in the country.
What the fuck?
