Analyst: Palm has sold 150,000 Pres
With Palm's (PALM) quarterly earnings due Thursday — along with Jon Rubinstein's debut performance as CEO — analysts have started to place their bets on what the quarter will show.
First out of the box — or at least, first in our inbox — is RBC Capital's Mike Abramsky, who expects investors to look past soft fourth-quarter results and focus on the potential for growth in the next fiscal year.
Specifically, his report to clients reports …
- 150,000 Pres. Having estimated that Sprint (S) sold 50,000 Pres in the device's June 6-7 opening weekend, Abramsky now estimates total sales to date of 150,000 units (up from his previous estimate of 120,000)
- Strong demand. Citing a June ChangeWave survey that showed Palm buying intentions doubling between March and June, to 8% from 4%, Abramsky says demand for the Pre is strong and inventories low. Most Sprint stores are sold out despite daily replenishments.
- More handsets. Abramsky is expecting Palm to release a smaller $99 model before the end of fiscal 2009 and additional devices in calendar 2010.
- More carriers. In additional to Bell Canada, Abramsky is looking for Palm to strike deals with O2, AT&T (T), Verizon (VZ), Telefonica, and Vodafone by the first half of 2010.
Although interest in Palm Pre is accelerating, as evidenced by the RBC/ChangeWave chart below, it still lags behind Apple's (AAPL) iPhone and Research in Motion's (RIMM) BlackBerry.
Apple says it sold more than 1 million iPhone 3GSs by the end of its first weekend of sales, 20 times the number Pres sold in its debut. Apple's number, however, covers three days of sales (vs. the Palm's two) and includes pre-orders and units shipped to overseas carriers.
See also:
One extremely important point in writing the OpenBES, don't make the same mistake as BES in locking the hardware device layer to one supplier only.
BES is not that hard to rewrite or replace in comparison to an entire operating system like Linux.
I and a few other security engineers may just be tempted to invite others we know to undertake a project to clone BES. Perhaps a good project for all the universities and colleges of the world? OpenBES?……I like the sound of that
Two things:
One, wasn't Dan Hesse, the CEO of Sprint quoted as saying that replenishments were "weekly"? How does Abramsky get daily replenishments?
Two, as I've pointed out before, Changewave surveys are highly unreliable. Correlation to actual results have not been shown. If you recall, last Fall, Changewave, aka Paul Carton, stated that Apple was going to have lousy sales. This caused Katie Huberty to drop her price targets on Apple, twice in one week. Of course, when Apple reported sales, the Changewave prediction did not come true, and noone backtracked to explain. No comment from Carton. No comment from Huberty. And yet, people still use Changewave surveys as justification for some angle they are promoting. As far as I'm concerned, citation of a Changewave survey, is a sign of lack of critical thinking, and reason to dismiss the analysis, wholesale.
Just look at the chart, the very fact that the time periods on the x-axis are not consistently spaced, should indicate problems. Additionally, if you follow their reports, you'll know that there are months were surveys have been done, but the numbers are not in the chart. In other words, the months have been cherrypicked.
Abramsky sure has a lot of interest in the smartphone sector, now that the stock prices are close to double or more what they were when he predicted misery in January and February.
He's like a weatherman who predicts yesterday's weather.
And still gets it wrong.
mike from chicago,
let's stop this pathetic argument that Pre phones are "SOLD OUT". the point is they have only sold 150,000 units (in three weeks!). I'm willing to bet that's how many iPhones were sold in California alone. One million phones in a 72 hr period is an amazing achievement and at this pace it's gonna take Sprint a few months to sell a million Pre phones.
it's easy to sell-out of Pre phones when Sprint stores only get like 6 units per week. That's how you CREATE demand- by cutting down on supply. It's a marketing illusion. Business 101, my friend.
I bet you Sprint would not have sold a million units in three days even if they had a million units to sell.
PED did a story on the day of the Pre launch, there were 12 people outside the Sprint Store (and they claim to have sold-out that day, again, probably because the store only had like 10 phones to sell). Apple stores have like 12 EMPLOYEES dedicated specifically to helping the hundreds of people that come in for iPhones DAILY.
Sprint has a lot of work to do, in their sales strategy and in the quality of products they sell. Apple stores have hundreds of iPhones in stock and get daily replenishments, and they still sell them, in your words, "before they can even be put on the shelf."
CA? HA .. thats a hoot – they raped us for 2mil for some code changes!
Let's take a 500 user base and compare the TCO against everything out there and RIM will come out ahead every time and still have room left over.
oh you need VPN access – you'll need to pay extra for that.
You want to disable functionality? – we can only do a handful, does that matter?
You want to audit SMS / TXT? – sorry again seperate solution or often not possible.
Device level encryption? – Umm maybe you should stay with Blackberry. It's on our "road map".
I have chats with every mobile vendor and it's been the same thing call after call.
I'd LOVE to see some BES solution that meets all MY needs and is cheaper … sadly it doesn't exsist.
The iPhone has the capability to run as internet application server with its own internet domain. As a internet domain the iPhone has its own TCPIP stack, data service happens to be only one of the stack. For voice you can use Skype for VoIP which is dirt cheap, Truphone is another alternative, or you can write your own iPhone services. With the iPhone, your knowledge is power.
Most of you are not system people and it is understandable where your comments come from. Fact is, Pre is probably the best enterprise device (you can call it one side of a smartphone) in the world today. Rim will find it hard to beat Pre and its offsprings. Of course, iPhone is super for enterprise device but the direction of the iPhone is a lot more ambitious than being a super enterprise device because as small as the iPhone is today, the iPhone can grow to become an enterprise server itself, or be any role the user chooses the iPhone to be.
I would just like to say, that Apple is truly a fantastic company. They are far ahead of the game, and beat the comp hands down. Every time a company inches closer to catching up with Apple, boom, Apple upgrades their products. I enjoyed seeing the analysts expect iPhone sales of ~600-700k when Apple soars past with 1M. Tells ya people really love Apple.
Nice, somewhat innovative. Too bad it's 5 years too late. I'm a long time Palm fan but it's sad to see a tech company come out with something "new" only once about every 8 years (the original Treos were from handspring).
All of thes phones do everything that most users need to do.
My question is what's the cost of doing everything my wife and I need to do over the two year contract that we're going to have to sign? That's two people, 500 voice minutes, text and data (we currently own Treos).
JW
And where are you are getting this fact about a huge chunk of sales being to existing Apple customers? It's harder to sell a 3rd generation device to the same consumers than it is to sell a 1st generation NEW PRODUCT. And they've still done a lot better than Palm has.
Also, as someone pointed out below, most of their existing userbase is already tied into the 3G phone with their 2 year carrier contracts so they probably can't be counted in these 3rd gen sales.
It's Palm's own idiocy to go with a smaller network than a larger one. Or maybe it was because a failing carrier like Sprint was the only one willing to gamble with a product from a failing company like Palm.
get over it pre's a nice phone, but no iphone killer. The storm 2 will be out soon and eat more of its profits. And you know what, who care's, if you like your phone and company, who gives a hoot. Only when apple enters any market the windonots have to make a big deal of it. The apple logo is a swastika to them. Do any of your really believe that these companies give a rats bum about you, so what is it your fighting for, your silly if you do.
I'd like to see how many developers Palm can attract with its tiny market share. They don't even have an SDK out yet.
The Pre is a huge improvement over Palm's previous offerings but don't forget it is Apple that has popularized smartphones in the mainstream consumer market. They may have sold a million 3GS iPhones, but that is AFTER selling millions of original and 3G iPhones. 3G users generally won't be able to buy a subsidized 3GS for another few months.
I'm happy at the increased competition which will benefit us consumers greatly but lets not get carried away. RIM and Apple are way ahead of Palm, which has a lot of catching up to do.
I don;t get the arguments here. I was a BB for years, i recently bought the new iPhone, I love it tons, I don;t understand why you all have to go back and forth on which is better etc. Don;t ya'll have anything better to worry about?
You Apple fans can say anything you want, but you need to realize one thing. A HUGE chunk of those sales were to people that are already using Apple… they didn't convert near as many people as they're making it sound. I have a BB and the PRE is the ONLY phone that has been released that has made me even remotely consider changing. Not to mention the fact that the iPhone is on the largest network and the Pre is on one of the smaller ones. The people on Sprint, they like cheap phones… if you don't believe me, go into their store and look at phone/plan prices. Selling a phone that is $300 out of pocket to a Sprint customer and doing it 150,000 times for a BRAND NEW PRODUCT…. pretty impressive if you ask me. But what do I know, I am just a lowly BB user…which obviously means I am a lesser individual. HAHA, you guys crack me up. Get off your high horses, Apple is SO ridiculously over rated.
@frank. It is quite possible for Palm to partner up with CA to develop a software far superior to BES. Rim had been milking American enterprises witj exorbitant BES license fees for far too long. CA is a vaunted supplier for truly enterprise tools for a very long time, CA is far better than Rim in administrative and monitoring tools, and CA is truly enterprisea wide offering ITRM or newer EAI support than BES ever can.
I believe that about half of the iPhone sales were overseas, so still at 500k domestically, which kills the Pre (if you want apples to apples). The real and only test for the Pre now is its ability to bring people to Sprint–and its still consistently losing subscribers. Its a failure otherwise, as its unlikely that Palm can sustain the capital to compete with Apple and RIM if it can't be a draw device.
johnnyboy, you scoff at the Palm sales, yet they have SOLD OUT. Demand is outpacing supply. So to pretend that it is selling poorly is rather obtuse of you. The things are selling before they can even be put on the shelf.
Palm has the best phone OS on the market now, period. Apple knows it and yet all they can offer is a video camera tacked onto the same boring old iPhone.
It's 1967 and the iPhone is the Ford Mustang, the pRe is an AMC – nice but small distribution, no cash flow to advertise or even make even handsets plus 18 apps versus 50,000 apps is the real deal breaker so Palm will be fine if their resources can handle having 3% of the market but they will only really be converting Treo users.
There can be little doubt Apple has wrested the future from IBM, Microsoft, Sun, Nokia, blackberry, Motorola.
A source in China mentioned hundreds of millions of Chinese eagerly awaiting Apple products this summer, like Iranians awaiting freedom and peace. blackberry is still just trying to investigate a way to enter China. China Unicom is liable to add billions of Apple sales this summer and beyond.
Meanwhile back in America, all signs point to an insurgence in software development to re-implement American enterprises and SMD business software using the Apple platform. This would be a multi-trillion dollar industry made for America, in America, right now.
As pointed out until Apple / at&t break out US numbers you cannot compare a 8 market launch to a 1 market launch.
iPhone likely sold to iPhone uses upgrading was likely a very large % vs. new subscribers. Pre on the other hand – every 150,000 came from some OTHER device so all things considered Palm should be happy.
@James – that is by far the smartest thing I have ever seen you write and your 100% correct. If Pre had BES type support it would be very attractive to corporate enterprise. You could say the same for iPhone but considering how Apple does enterprise support I'm betting Palm will move quicker.
Palm's Pre was not what I thought it would be. Palm didn’t get this time (failed before with Palm Centro) the basic idea that is “intuitive design”. Pre requires some learning time to get to its new features. All those horses (defected executives from Apple) couldn’t fix the Palm’s newest humpty-dumpty.
Philip
You should also point out that Abramsky was the author of a 'puff piece' suggesting there was value in Palm shares, when Palm sold shares last quarter. As Walt Mossberg WSJ said in his Pre review, Palm is a company 'running on fumes'. For a jaundiced view of Palm's financials see my article http://lowendmac.com/nash/09tn/palm-death-2.html
Tim
Palm is tiny right now, they need time to grow and ramp-up their supply. Theyve short-changed themselves in the past but are making up for it now. What the Apple Fanbois dont get is that the Pre isnt necessarily going for iPhone users (although Im sure Palm will take them). The Smartphone market *itself* is expanding rapidly and there is a lot of territory to cover; Palm is hoping to take "dumb phone" and "feature phone" users and convert them to smartphone users.
This article is misleading. Yes, Apple sold 1 million iPhones on it's opening weekend, but that was WORLDWIDE! The Pre was only sold in the US! Apple has thus far not broken down how many iPhones were sold in the US, but I'm guessing at least on person bought this phone in one of the other 22 countries it was sold. This isn't a fair comparison.
ex ped: Eight countries this year, 21 countries last July. But your point is well taken.
Pre is the best smartphone for business in the world. With a BES like administrative software the Pre would replace blackberry as the American enterprise handset without a doubt, probably in 2011.
The Apple fanboys here are getting emo! 150 on SPRINT … if this comes out on Verizon and AT&T in 6 months, it won't replace the iPhone but it will take a big chunk of the market.
Boy all that s… talking from the PRE corner and they sold a pathetic 150k phones in 2 days.
Wow Palm, looks like youre giving the iPhone a run for its money!
The iPhone was the baddest phone when it came out and still continues to be so.
EVERYONE has tried to overthrow the iPhone… and yet no one has even come close.
All those jibs that were flapping… hahahaha
Haters.
ex ped: That was 50K in two days, 150K in three weeks.
Gee, the number of Pre's sold straight from an Anal ist's mouth!
Gosh, then it must be accurate! Maybe even true! Oh, Revalation, sweet Revelation!
Ayuh
Hey PED, correct your mistakes. Apple did not ship 1 million iphone 3GS' ……. Apple SOLD OVER 1 million 3GS phones over the weekend. Emphasis on the two words SOLD and OVER!!! Just like the announcement quoted from Steve Jobs stated.
ex ped: I'll give you the "more than," but Apple counts units shipped to carriers as "sold."
apple fanboys,
don't feel threatened by Pre. it is not going to hurt iPhone. Palm is small company they pulled a nice phone with limited resources they have. take a moment and appreciate it. it may not be perfect but it is still nice.