Palm has sold nearly twice the number of Pre smartphones as previously estimated, according to Ed Snyder, co-founder and wireless industry analyst at Charter Equity Research.
Synder says Palm sold 300,000 of the new smartphones in June, and another 75,000 in late May. Neither Palm nor sole-carrier Sprint have yet disclosed numbers, and some analysts put the June sales figure at 150,000. Snyder based his estimates on talks with unnamed sources in retail and manufacturing channels.
His research and conclusions are cited in an InformationWeek story, which cites his claim that Palm is now cranking ouit 15,000 units per day, and still has not caught up the strong demand for the Pre. Snyder estimates thatPalm and will deliver about 1 million units during the first full quarter of manufacturing.
Apple's new iPhone 3GS, with the 3.0 operating system, sold that many in its opening weekend.
Still, the TechTraderDaily blog at Barrons.com noted that Snyder says the 1 million units are "well above consensus." And Snyder expects Palm to reach about 1 million units per month by early 2010 or before, as it rolls out a WCDMA/GSM version of the Pre with Spain's Telefonica in September, and the announced roll-out with Bell Mobility in Canada. (Engadget this week posted a video from Vietnam, of all places, which purports to show a Palm Pre with a GSM radio; the voice-over is presumably Vietnamese but in any case it's not English.)
AT&T has expressed interest in the Palm product, and speculation has been rife that Sprint would have exclusive U.S. sale of the Pre for barely six months. But it's possible that Palm could introduce for the 3G GSM camp in the U.S. an entirely separate webOS-based device, such as the rumored Eos, something of a BlackBerry lookalike: a "candy bar" style with the keyboard set openly below the screen.
Cox is a senior editor at Network World.
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Palm needs a non-phone Pre
I hope Palm releases a less expensive device that has all the features of the Pre but without the cell phone. I prefer to have separate devices for my PDA and my cell phone. I use a Palm TX today that I'd gladly upgrade if there was a Palm Pre-like PDA-only device.
"non-phone Pre"
John W. Cox senior editor Network World
Interesting idea: analogous to the iPod Touch, which is basically, of course, an iPhone without the...phone.
Palm has said the Pre is only the first webOS device, so we can expect other form factors. It would be interesting to see a Wi-Fi only Web device with webOS. But Apple's price cut of the older iPhone 3G to $99 is going to prove a challenge for non-phone devices, I think.
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