What the huge sales of the $99 TouchPad tells us about iPad and the future of tablets

Do the huge sales of the $99 TouchPad tell us anything about the iPad and the future of tablets?

No.

TL;dnr

Very clever.  This is a much better analysis: http://goo.gl/YnlQA

It’ll be fun watching them try to return them. 

 A Mac is twice the price of a PC. 

The 1990s called: they want their mythical memes back. 

Looking at the people who lined up to buy it, and the number of people trying to sell at a $50 profit on Craigslist, I think you can extrapolate three things: “people like perceived bargains”, “people like trying to make a quick buck”, and “some people like dead tech.” I say this with a 3Com Audrey sitting in the other room.

It tells us that people haven’t—yet–learned what bargain pricing will get you in a tablet. (Hint: nothing like an iPad! And when you end up getting an iPad anyway, that “cheap” TouchPad is more like a $100 penalty.*)

• But get one if you’re a hobbyist who wants to tinker and mod with no support—but less cash risked. Maybe install one in your car as a big clock! Or something cooler than that.

So…the right price is taking a $200 punch in the stomach on every single device?

I was PRAYING you were going to say that! Nice going!

Agree!

The original Multipla may be ugly, but it’s ugly in a good way. One of my favourite cars ever.

I prefer Ian’s analysis for the value per word (and we are talking about value aren’t we?).

I prefer Ian’s analysis for the value per word (and we are talking about value aren’t we?).

Very true.  Although it will be interesting to see what impact (if any) half a million devices out in the wild will do for WebOS moving forward.

They do make reasonably good large beer mats except they are not absorbent, are quite heavy and tend to ooze after a while. 

Or some people will buy a dead-end POS if they think they are getting a “deal” on price. (and try to resell it on craigslist).

Or some people will buy a dead-end POS if they think they are getting a “deal” on price. (and try to resell it on craigslist).

It tells us that there are a lot of speculators out there hoping to ‘flip’ these doorstops. If you believe what you read in some tech blogs’ comments.

Lotsa luck.

It tells us that there are a lot of speculators out there hoping to ‘flip’ these doorstops. If you believe what you read in some tech blogs’ comments.

Lotsa luck.

Genius.

These $99 Touchpad sales remind me of a Simpsons joke when they’re at the dollar store…

LISA: “I don’t know, Dad, the label says this canned shrimp may lead to ‘red tide’ poisonIng”

HOMER: “But it’s so (gulp) cheap!”

He then proceeds to get sick and turn purple.

We had an Audrey! I wonder what happened to her?

Definitely a wake up call to all the other tablet makers out there. It tells them that in order to get Apple-sized crowds for a tablet with no apps, no updates, and so-so reviews, all you need is an $400 price drop. 

Or in other words, your tablets aren’t exciting enough to be priced anywhere near the iPad.

Apple-sized crowds? Hardly.  Apple sold more iPads in the first day than the number of TouchPads HP manufactured (IIRC).

Apple-like interest, sure…

No, smarty pants.

Who knows?  TouchPads could be worth big bucks as a collectors’ item in the future.  Plenty of nostalgia value, as in “Wow.  I remember when tech companies thought that all they needed was slick hardware plus an intuitive OS.  Why didn’t those primitive people see that it’s all about the experience and the infrastructure?”

I believe that was an Audrey II! Nice joke!

The touchpad is a mediocre device that still would have been easy to clear out at $200, maybe $250.  I just wonder why they set the price so low…HP left a lot of money on the table. 

If HP had decided to sell all their remaining PC inventories for 80 % off how would that have looked like? The frenzy would have been 100 times bigger. What would that have told us about the future of the PC? Nothing.

Or something like the successor to Amazon’s kindle where the price per unit is significantly subsidized to leverage the their online sales of apps, books and anything else you can buy through Amazon. They’re pretty good at selling stuff.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19736_7-20084801-251/amazon-reportedly-ramping-up-7-and-10-inch-tablets/

It’s just one weekend, and it’s a product that has been declared dead by the vendor. I don’t think this will change perceptions anymore than a $150 Archos tablet that has been available for half a year.

So buy ram somewhere else.

I wonder what total webOS sales since 2009 were. Maybe 4 million?

If by “better” you mean “less accurate,” then sure.

Antiques Roadshow, 2250.  Smug appraiser robot with British accent. “You say your ancestors paid $99 for this? We actually see quite a few of these, usually pristine, lightly used, in the original box. Worth today? $5,000 which is equivalent to ~$5 in 2011 dollars. I’ll give you $500,000 for the box though as it is made from those extinct things they used to call trees.”

No won’t work, that would require a walled garden! The very thing they are wailing against! Remember open open open!

Cellphone carriers have multi-year contract-guaranteed revenue stream when they subsidize smartphones. AT&T charges you $100/month for 24 months to subsidize a phone by a few hundred dollars (so a $350 subsidy is recouped in 3.5 months with 21.5 months left on the contract to recover other costs and for profit).What sort of guarantees do you see in your “recurring revenue stream” which would parallel that? A minimum number of ebook purchases? Using the agency model, Amazon gets a 30% cut of each ebook, so to subsidize a tablet by $200, Amazon would need to make a minimum of 67 ebook sales at $10/ebook to make the subsidy revenue neutral. Even if you add in music and apps to the mix, you need to consider that $200/tablet is a significant amount to recoup and in few scenarios are you likely to see anything approaching AT&T’s revenue stream.So the question is at what point does a “recurring revenue stream” from a subsidized tablet become profitable? And I don’t think it happens unless you are in a situation like AT&T (or Verizon or whomever) is charging you a huge monthly fee.

it tells us the 1+ million unsold Samsung 7″ Gingerbread Galaxy tablets still sitting in warehouses and stockrooms around the world after almost a year are worth about $49 each.

when will Samsung take the big write-off (or how will they try to hide it?) for that colossal blunder? like $half a billion.

I won’t argue that it is anything more than “conjecture”, I’m just saying it is a possibility considering the pricing trend of the current version of the Kindle: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/02/26/free-kindle

Maybe a subscription model plus the online market revenue?
“… last week Michael Arrington at TechCruch reported on a rumor which hints at a more clever plan: a free Kindle for every Prime customer of Amazon. Prime customers pay $79 per year for free 2-day shipping, and as of last week, free unlimited streaming movies (a la Netflix).

Arringtonwrites:In January Amazon offered select customers a free Kindle of sorts – they had to pay for it, but if they didn’t like it they could get a full refund and keep the device. It turns out that was just a test run for a much more ambitious program. A reliable source tells us Amazon wants to give a free Kindle to every Amazon Prime subscriber.”

A $99 retail pricepoint is not realistic when a device costs $300 to manufacture. >:O

Seriously, everyone that thinks tablets should retail for $99 have collectively bumped their heads.

games
touchpad

OH U

…and lack of industrial design expertise.

“HP single-handedly destroys non-iPad tablet market”

That’s not a very insightful article considering there IS NO non-iPad tablet market.

Thumbs up if Daring Fireball leads you here.

They had already made $100m provision n accounts to wipe them off. 

Confessions time: I’ve used my iPad as a tea tray on at least one occasion. I hang my head in shame

At $99 it’s a disposable gadget. Soon the users will dispose of them.

Nicely put Ian. 

There’s enough people in the world who’ll buy shit on a stick if they think they’re getting it at a bargain price.

100 comments for a 1 word article. I don’t know wether to laugh or cry.

It will sit proudly on my shelf next to Hooter’s Barbie and the Partridge Family lunch box. 

actually, I think it tells us that there is a huge market for a cheap, email and web surfing tablet since obviously they are not buying for the Apps.

What’s the point of repeating this post in the comments?  In fact, what’s the point of this post beyond trying to look smart?

There were a lot of Multipla around here a few years ago, and I’ve been wondering ever since that it must be very cheap for so many people to buy one.

/me hangs head in shame.

 http://boingboing.net/2008/04/24/untitled-1.html

No words, 3014 comments.