Palm Pre: Inventory Watch

Palm is replenishing its Pre inventory in drips and has shipped roughly 100,000 units thus far, according to J.P. Morgan analyst Paul Coster.

Guessing Pre units has become a parlor game of sorts in the tech industry since Palm and Sprint aren’t talking. Meanwhile, there are questions about Palm’s ability to keep the Pres coming. Coster reckons that Palm delivered 50,000 Pres in the first two days of the launch. Since then Palm has delivered another 50,000 Pres, but inventory is being replenished slowly. Thus far, Palm, which named Jon Rubinstein CEO on Wednesday, appears to be meeting demand.

Coster writes:

Channel checks conducted Thursday, the 11th, suggest shipments to Sprint stores have averaged about 10- 15 units every 2 days, implying about 36K-55K units will have shipped by Saturday (1,200 stores, three shipments of 10-15 units). RadioShack inventory has been replenished once (back to launch-date levels or higher), whereas Best Buy has not received additional units (based on very limited sample). Our channel checks included 28 Sprint stores across the nation, 3 Radio Shack stores, and 3 Best Buys.

Meanwhile, Sprint (S) is only selling Pres to customers on the waiting list. New customers on the waiting list get bumped to the top of the queue. Coster adds:

Though we came away with a generally favorable impression of the sell-in momentum that Palm is currently experiencing, we also detected a lot of uncertainty. Sprint stores are being dripfed devices without much certainty or uniformity regarding timing and quantity. A Best Buy associate expressed hope that devices would be delivered by Friday but sounded doubtful.

Coster’s advice: If you want a Pre go to Radio Shack (RSH). The early adopter crowd has neglected Radio Shack. Simply put, it pays to go where the cool kids aren’t if you really want a Pre.

Comments

[JamesApple:]

I have said many times since 2008 that Pre will Preside over where BOGOberries are today - Corporate America.

BOGOberry is a one pony show, from email to BES, all homogeniously BOGOberry only. This is a secrecy oriented culture carried over from the George W Bush era, it is so contrarian to our open and embracing world today.

Apple MobileMe, Google, WebOS, Microsoft Live, Adobe, IBM, etc, are all moving towards Cloud Computing. BOGOberry is anti-Cloud Computing because all BOGOberry products and services run under BOGOberry only.

In a short time, when cloud computing is mainstream, BOGOberry will no longer be relevant in the world. The year 2010 perhaps.

Jun 13 02:04 PM

[Stop Paying...:]

It iPhone 3Gs your fake inventory watch should be covering.

www.appleinsider.com/a...

Jun 13 05:17 PM

[Aryamehr:]

I am happy to say the Pre has more than met my expectations. I think comparing the Pre with the iPhone is a big mistake, because they are two different animals serving two different markets. Most business people will gravitate to the Pre over time while most young kids and teenagers will prefer the iPhone. The iPhone is a good portable console for playing games and listening to music, however as a business tool the Pre has a better feel and is much more user friendly. Nevertheless, they are both good consumer items and I can see them both coexisting amongst the same consumers for different reasons. We should also note that both are by products of American ingenuity contrary to Blackberries, Nokias, HTCs, and Samsung etc. If you wish to help us get out of this recession then consider buying American products.

Jun 14 12:54 AM

[Economyst:]

@ Aryamehr

Your Orwellian double speak "Buying American" is truly misguided. Look at the back of the Iphone - designed in Califormia made in China.

Buying goods labelled made in America is not what you need to do. You need to make America a place once again to manufacture and produce goods (the manufacturing sector creates more value and wealth than the financial sector) but when you have a legal and medical system that raise the cost of conducting business then is it any surprise that work is offshored?

Jun 14 06:38 PM

[JamesApple:]

Pre and iPhone are both manufactured in China and sold in America. It costs Apple about $130 to make one iPhone and sells it for about $500. Can America make the iPhone for $130? eBay iPhones cost $400. BOGOberries electronic parts are made by Celestica in Toronto, the bodies are made in Korea and the assembly is done in Waterloo. Celestica and BOGOberry both hire a lot of Asians working near minimum wages. The labour cost differentials between these Asians and the Asians back are less than 6% before these two companies collect the Canadian government subsidies.

For the last few years the corporations find it harder to make fat profits because the wages overseas are rising, transportation costs skyrocketed due to Exxon oil price hikes. Large corporations either artificially bloated their prices or cease operations which do not generate giga profits. Thus we are in the worst depression in 50 years.

Of course, the world is a lot more complex than that. But the basic problem is the corporations had gotten a whole lot richer and more powerful than the people. 95% of all people are either got no clothes on their backs, or got debts that would take 3 lifetimes to clear.

Corporations are supposed to be virtual entities created to make life better. Right now they are doing what they were created for.

Americans have to work, there are no 'if' and 'but'.

Jun 14 08:21 PM

[EJL:]

Commenters keep saying that the Pre is going to do well in the business setting and take over RIM's market share. Yet I see zero facts to support this. What about the Pre will dominate the Blackberry in the enterprise? Please answer that question.

As I see it, my Pre is not as good as the iPhone for media consumption and games. It feels like an iPhone junior (and the much smaller screen accentuates this). And the Pre doesn't even touch my Blackberry for messaging. So where does this leave the device?

Please explain, jamesapple and aryamehr, what specifically about the Pre makes it a better choice for enterprises than a blackberry or iphone. I don't see it. This appears to be just one's biased view with no factual support.

Jun 15 11:11 AM

[EJL:]

Seriously? This makes no sense. Mobileme only works on iPhones, WebOS only works on Palm devices. RIM's email system IS a cloud service. This just clearly demonstrates 1. you don't understand what you are writing 2. you are so inherently biased you can't think clearly and rationally.

I bet you loved when Apple cut its computer prices to play the elasticity curve, yet you have an issue when a carrier does the exact same thing with a product you inherently dislike (probably because it is working so well).

It's a shame that more intelligent conversations can't be had about these subjects. It just appears to be the same old Apple cult fans doing their same old thing.


On Jun 13 02:04 PM JamesApple wrote:

>
> Apple MobileMe, Google, WebOS, Microsoft Live, Adobe, IBM, etc, are
> all moving towards Cloud Computing. BOGOberry is anti-Cloud Computing
> because all BOGOberry products and services run under BOGOberry only.
>
>
> In a short time, when cloud computing is mainstream, BOGOberry will
> no longer be relevant in the world. The year 2010 perhaps.

Jun 15 11:20 AM

[Geddy:]

I believe they're Sprextel employees....


On Jun 15 11:11 AM EJL wrote:

> Commenters keep saying that the Pre is going to do well in the business
> setting and take over RIM's market share. Yet I see zero facts to
> support this. What about the Pre will dominate the Blackberry in
> the enterprise? Please answer that question.
>
> As I see it, my Pre is not as good as the iPhone for media consumption
> and games. It feels like an iPhone junior (and the much smaller screen
> accentuates this). And the Pre doesn't even touch my Blackberry for
> messaging. So where does this leave the device?
>
> Please explain, jamesapple and aryamehr, what specifically about
> the Pre makes it a better choice for enterprises than a blackberry
> or iphone. I don't see it. This appears to be just one's biased view
> with no factual support.

Jun 15 12:18 PM

[Nextel Acce...:]

It's a really great device. I encourage everyone to take a look at it. You will also save a lot on the monthly cost over iPhone.

Jun 15 05:20 PM

[Aryana:]

The engineers that designed both the Pre and iPhone are mainly American, however because of comparitive advantage it is wise to manufacture the product where ever it is cheaper. The profits go into American companies and pay for high paying US engineers. This is what Aryamehr was probably infering. No company of substantial magnitude can be wholly localized. What counts is its ownership and those that hold the intelligence, ie Patents, R&D and Engineers/designers not the low paying workers that put the product together in an essembly line.

Jun 16 05:43 PM