A slip of the tongue has revealed that Samsung may not have sold as many Galaxy Tabs as they first claimed. After initially telling journalists that they had sold 1.5 million of their 7″ tablets in 2010, it’s now been revealed that this was the volume shipped to carriers by Samsung and not the units sold by retailers with carriers now claimingthat sales are “slow”.
According to the Wall street Journal company official Lee Young-hee revealed the information when pressed to explain sales during a conference call over the weekend.
Younge-hee said that these were only sales to carriers and retail stores, not real customers. She wouldn’t say how many had shipped but was aware that it was “quite small” relative to the number reaching stores.
The sales performance was “quite OK,” Lee said, but also “wasn’t as fast as we expected.” She was hopeful for 2011 tablet sales but saw the category as too fresh to make predictions.
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Engadget claims that Samsung’s disclosure could significantly alter the real market share for Android tablets, which Strategy Analytics said had jumped to 22 percent in the last quarter due almost entirely to the Galaxy Tab.
In Australia Samsung is still selling the device for over $850 when the same product is selling in the USA for sub $500. No attempt was made during the call to explain the relatively poor uptake. Critics have usually cited the lack of a Wi-Fi-only model that wasn’t made available until this year and Samsung’s frequent reliance on carrier-discounted 3G versions.
Analysts said that The device’s position as a stopgap tablet may have played a part in the poor sales. Many fans were already aware that Google’s true tablet OS, Android 3.0, was due early this year. Such knowledge could have left many waiting for the next-generation Galaxy Tab to avoid buying a short-lived product. Since the current model doesn’t have the 720p screen or dual-core processor that has been a staple of Android 3.0 tablets shown so far, it could be left running at best Android 2.3 and more likely 2.2. they claimed.
The WSJ said that only one other major mobile platform maker has used a similar strategy in recent months. Microsoft has so far refused to discuss real Windows Phone 7 sales for the last quarter in favour of talking only about sales to carriers. It’s commonly thought to be using a similar strategy to Samsung, where declining to mention the number of real activations helps mask significantly lower demand from customers.
