Data Monday: Slashing Tablet Prices

by November 7, 2011

Many tablet manufacturers are deciding to cut back prices in order to compete against Apple's iPad. It's working for some but not all.

  • Six weeks after launching the TouchPad, Hewlett-Packard dropped the price of a 16GB HP TouchPad to $399 and 32GB for $499. (source)
  • One week later Hewlett-Packard announced it would stop making WebOS hardware put the TouchPad on "firesale" price of $99 [down from $399] and for the 16GB version and $150 [down from $499] for the 32GB model. (source)
  • Hewlett-Packard sold 350,000 TouchPads on fire sale prices in one weekend. (source)
  • Motorola's Xoom is the latest Android tablet to get lower pricing, it's now available for $379 instead of $499. (source)
  • During its most recent quarter, Motorola shipped only 100,000 of the Xoom. It shipped about that same number last quarter. (source)
  • For comparison, Apple sold 11.12 million iPads during the quarter, a 166 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. (source)
  • Last month, HTC's Flyer Android tablet dropped in price from $500 to $300. (source)
  • BlackBerry PlayBook prices were cut by $200 in the US last month. Last week, retailers took an additional $50 off the price of the 16GB and 32GB models. (source)
  • To-date, RIM has shipped about 750,000 of them, though the company hasn't revealed how many it has actually sold to end users. RIM's Playbook shipments went from 500,000 to 200,000 this quarter. (source)
  • Amazon's Kindle Fire seems to be holding up against the iPad, thanks in large part to its $199 price tag. The company is estimated to be selling 25,000 Kindle Fire tablets every day. (source)
  • Barnes & Noble released the Nook Tablet priced at $249. (source)