Analyst: Pre could launch with less than 150,000 units available 27
Sweet mother of whatever you find holy, I thought that 400,000 was bad! If Ashok Kumar of Collins Stewart investment bank is to be believed, Foxconn manufacturing of Hong Kong is having major problems building the Palm Pre. He was quoted in Barron’s saying:
“About two weeks ago, Foxconn was having problems with the flexible printed circuit board for the Pre and having trouble getting adequate yields for the capacitive touch-screen display. Now, it appears Foxconn has found more hardware problems, and it’s not clear if the problem is with Texas Instruments’s OMAP application processor, or with some basic design issue.”
Apparently the problems have forced Foxconn to check each Pre by hand instead of running the devices through an automated testing process as would normally be done for such a high-volume production run.
It is worth noting that Mr. Kumar does not officially cover Palm as part of his duties at Collins Stewart. One of his areas of concentration is Qualcomm, which manufactures the radios for the Pre, and Kumar does not expect that any problems the Pre may be facing will have an appreciable impact on Qualcomm’s shares.
Thanks to rbcmd in our forums and everybody else that sent this in!
27 Comments
And the 3G chipset in the new iPhone 3G was deemed flawed by an 'analyst.' They always get this stuff wrong...
Why on Earth would you release Sprint's/Palm's savior with less than 150k units?
Unfortunately, Ashok Kumar appears to be a clueless moron. Look at his past history of comments. Pretty much anything negative from an analyst that has been said in any investment article mentioning the Pre has come from him.
Exactly. He seems really bitter or something, what is wrong with this guy?
I swear to god...if I can't get a Pre on THE DAY it's released, I'm going straight to the AT&T store to buy and iPhone and that is no joke. I'm sick of waiting.
Calm down. Kumar is just trying to set people off.
why dont you get the iphone now. we'll be a lot happier if you do that.
OH NO!!! What can we do to stop you...
Dude just go ahead and get the iphone, it's available right NOW!!! There is no wait at all, Crybaby!
Save Sprint the return you're going to be doing and go straight to ATT. Somebody else from here will truly enjoy the phone that you just wanted to try out.
You are so full of crap Scott! You know good and well that you will wait. Sick of waiting? So you have been waiting since January, but if you have to wait 7 more days after June 6th then you are going to Apple. Please dude.
Sigh. You're probably right (and I can confirm that I'm usually full of crap) but still... I suppose I would wait for a bit..but has anyone heard how long it will take for second, third, fourth rounds of manufacturing will take before they're available?
The rumor was late July/August.
I thought it wasnt even Foxconn who was making the unit.
It isn't Foxconn, Chi Mei Communication Systems (a subsidiary of Foxconn) is doing OEM (Original equipment manufacturer) for Palm. Foxconn manufacturers the iphone. If these problems existed, there is no way the Pre will be launching on June 6th. These so-called analyst who are obviously Apple hawks, are teetering along the lines of defamation.
This guy Kumar has done nothing but trash the pre, don't believe anything he says.
Oh, bother.
I have to wait until august to get one, so I hope they have units available by then and they are in good working order. if not, my family is discussing moving to at&t and I will just get the iphone. and that doesn't necessary thrill me as much as the pre!
This is great! This just shows how powerful Kumar's statements were. Everybody now wants to move to iPhone.
Yep, "Everybody" If one person says it on a blog, that means "everybody" is doing it. LOL!
Tongue in cheek bro. Tongue in cheek.
If you want to move to AT&T, AT&T will likely have the Pre in January. I'm on an AT&T plan right now, and would really prefer AT&T to Sprint. But I don't think I will wait... But if you can wait, you might want to.
I care about the Pre and not Sprint. It's unfortunate that Sprint won the exclusive, but such is life. At least it's not a long one.
Do we know how long the exclusivity agreement is with Sprint? I've seen people state that usually Palm makes such agreements for six months, but I haven't read that anyone knows for sure that's how long the agreement lasts for the Pre.
No one knows, everything is pure speculation, as the poster above you is doing. Saying AT&T will be getting the Pre in Jan is moronic, especially since it was recently announced that Bell Canada and Europe will be getting *A* version of the Pre next. Also, Palm said they will not be launching the Pre on other carriers where Sprint has service.
This is exciting! This also sounds a little fishy.
Why doesn't Kumar go back to White Castle and shut up. Some random guy says something and all of a sudden it's true, it's so stupid.
OH GOD
the main reason for considering the iphone and at&t is that I rarely get messages and calls and voicemails (which is common at sprint as I have found in my many years as a customer). I would have to break my contract to move... and that's a downside. so now its just a matter of availability to me. my treo 800w is requiring more hard resets to function and if the pre isn't in stock when I am financially ready to get a new phone, I'll have to go where I can get something similar. I am pretty patient, but all this "news" of small stock is a little worrisome. not to mention that we don't know a whole lot about bugs, issues, etc... waiting, ftw.
FUD
I trust very little that i-bankers say - they tend to be very wrong, and operating on old info.
Look how many were wrong with the iPhone launch.
Not saying there will be a lot around at launch...people are clamoring for it, so demand will be high for a while.
Remember, the iPhone was basically sold out for a couple months, and then once the initial frenzy died down, they were readily available.