Lenovo Claims Samsung Galaxy Tab Sold Just 20,000

An anonymous reader writes "Andrew Barrow, director of consumer products for Lenovo Western Europe, claims that the original Galaxy Tab only sold 20,000 out of one million shipped. He goes on to say Samsung was 'channel stuffing' in order to generate publicity and become known as a major Android tablet manufacturer."

Comments

wasn't aware of that term

[Trepidity]

From Wikipedia,

Channel stuffing is the business practice where a company, or a sales force within a company, inflates its sales figures by forcing more products through a distribution channel than the channel is capable of selling to the world at large.

Sounds analogous to the common practice in the book-publishing industry of quoting "100,000 copies shipped" or whatever, which may or may not bear much relationship to how many books have been sold. In fact, some of the strange practices in book retailing, like publishers' willingness to give a credit to bookstores for unsold books without even having them returned, are in part aimed at making it easier to shovel a bunch of books down the distribution channels.

Re:wasn't aware of that term

[ge7]

Google probably has their hands in it too. Galaxy Tab is the only widely known Android tablet and they need to push the idea that someone is actually using Android in tablets. They are a marketing company after all, so they play tricks. This says more about Google and Android than about Samsung, actually.

Re:And?

[haus]

Anyone considering making applications for tablets might be interested in how many tablets of a given type have made it into the hands of consumers (e.g. people who might buy there apps).

Re:Seriously HP, you're a tool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lenovo is referring to the fail 7 inch original Galaxy Tab running Android 2.2. Not the Honeycomb tablet. This is because Lenovo made their own tablet running Android 2.3, in that same 7 inch form factor.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 is doing just fine.

Re:History repeats itself

[grumling]

Success, if defined by meeting your sales goals, would have to go to Fujitsu. They've been making tablets for decades now. Most of them run Windows (either CE or X86), resistive touch or custom stylus.

They aren't sexy, but every 7-11 in the country (world?) has at least one for inventory control. People use them for work, not watching movies, so I guess they don't count.

Re:History repeats itself

[oakgrove]

I find Lenovos numbers quite suspect. When the Toichpad only sold 1/10 as many shipped units, Best Buy went apoplectic and demanded to ship them all back but, you are trying to tell me that when Samsung does the same, Best Buy is all cool about it and not a peep? So, where are the galaxy tabs? Sitting in best Buy's warehouse? Yeah. Sure.

Re:History repeats itself

[blair1q]

Consumer goods are a niche product.

Ever buy anything from Agilent?

No?

They sell a $7 billion a year in "niche" products.

Lots of consumer companies would love that sort of revenue.

Re:of course ... as people have been saying all al

[CharlyFoxtrot]

In contrast to their past history, Apple is not selling at a much higher margin over manufacturing costs (or they have lower costs) vs generic competitors.

This makes it very, very difficult to displace an iPad.

This is brilliantly done by Apple and a real problem for Android tablets: who is making any money ? Google is making a bit of money from the ads in the Google apps and the Android market, meanwhile the hardware vendors because of Apple's sharp margin on the iPad and because they don't control their platform are making nothing. It's a repeat of the PC market with Google playing Microsofts' role, only without the golden decade during the boom years. Amazon seems to be the only one who gets it: cut the tablet down as much as possible to make it cheaper, market to your existing customer base, create your own ecosystem with store etc. and tell Google "so long and thanks for all the fish." They'll be the first ones making serious money of off an Android tablet.

Re:History repeats itself

[VirginMary]

windows xp

And that's where the epic fail resided before Apple came out with the iPad! An OS wholly unsuited for a tablet device! Only the tight integration of OS and hardware that Apple provided is what made a tablet computer a useful! Yes, not for all the same things as a laptop, but, partially the same things and some other things for which a laptop is not ideally suited, such as reading or watching video on a plane. I love my MacBook Pro, especially with MacPorts giving me a lot of the unix-y command-line tools that I love, but I would never use it or even a much smaller laptop (mine is 17") to replace my iPad for my lengthy bus rides or even on my plane rides. And yes, for me it is primarily a media consumption device and fantastic web browser. (I know, no Flash, and good riddance to it, too!) But, so what? The right thing for the right job is what I say. It may not work for you and I don't see it replacing my laptop for a long time, or even ever, but I get about 2 hours of solid use out of it every week day and for non-geeks, I am a programmer, it may well work as the only device they need. Especially when paired with a bluetooth keyboard.