Analyst talks Pre sales smack, Palm delivers smackdown 27
If you’ll think back to Palm’s last quarterly conference call, they revealed that around 810,000 Pre phones had been sold. Now today despite the pleasant surprise in sales numbers that beat most estimations, one of those unruly analysts has reared his head and claimed that Palm is indeed not doing as well as we all thought. David Eller of Town Hall Research (whom we have heard from before) said in a recent note that Palm’s sales figures were inflated by reporting the number of units sold by Sprint plus those that Sprint shipped to third party resellers (e.g. Best Buy) instead of the actual number of activated units. Eller went on to say that “channel inventory is currently about 11 weeks, which we believe will pressure reorder rates and make it more difficult to sell high [average selling price] products going forward.”
Palm would have nothing of it, and in a response to John Paczkowski of Digital Daily said, “The sell-through data we post reflects carriers’ sales to their customers. For example, Sprint customers include consumers who buy in a Sprint store, and Sprint retail partners such as Best Buy and RadioShack. We rely on our wireless carriers to provide us with sell-through data, and we note this fact in our 10Q.”
[via: Gizmodo]
27 Comments
There are three Pre owners within 20 feet of my desk ... and my firm officially supports only iPhone and Blackberry.
I think the Pre is doin' fine.
Mr. Eller (if he deserves the appellation) is probably trying to talk down Palm stock, in hopes he can afford to buy some...
LOL who makes these graphics? That picture is just awesome! I'm going to download it to my Pre (Web OS 1.2 web downloading) and set it as wallpaper! :) Very classic! Sure sick of all the FUD the analysts love to spread. They are like the devil! (most likely hired by Apple)
99% of the graphics are either sourced by or made by the article's author. If it's hilarious, the author probably made it. ;-)
Very diplomatically stated, Derek. :)
Fantastic work Derek. =D
hahahhaha how awesome is ur comment!! Lol these pictures they put are prettty rad btw
1. Yes, the pictures are frequently quite funny.
B. Remember: You can't spell analyst without the ANAL and these asstacklers are so routinely clueless, it's astounding that any sensible investor would rely on their counsel.
Great pic. Where's Mickey Rourke? This analyst is clearly playing to the PALM shorts...great job by the suits in smacking right back.
And John Biggs jumped on the anti-Pre trash talk, as well.
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/09/30/pre-faltering-palm-laying-off-emplo...
The comments definitely called him out, though, which was nice to see.
I just can't see how John Biggs can be taken seriously for anything journalistic ffrom here on out with careless articles like this. He's ruined any (positive) reputation he might have had. What a biased moron. He probably owns an iPhone with nothing but free apps...or even better...5 free iFart apps and 7 free flashlight apps, only.
Hmm..I have a Pre, my wife has a Pre, my brother-in-law has a Pre, a few co-workers have Pre's...
I had to settle for a store demo unit as a replacement to a swimming-pool damaged Pre. My local store has been out of stock, Best Buy is out and so is my local 'The Shack'....no replenishments until later in the week due to demand.
Yup...Pre doing fine.
BTW...my local store says that since the AnyMobile promotion started, they can't keep the Pre in stock. Most of the mutiny is coming from AT&T..
dude, I tried posting on digital daily today, bringing up the common sense fact that christmas is coming and a rise in inventories is normal. They never posted it. Maybe that's when he was getting that clarification from palm.
i'll give them this, though: since palm did not specify a specific sales number for the pre, they left it open for speculation. I think that palm is trying to not be the "iphone killer" by avoiding comparisons. But sometimes you need to just lay the numbers out there. Of course, there's the Sprint end of this equation too which has to be considered, but concrete numbers up front would be a comfort to investors, and avoid damaging speculations.
You do bring up a good point regarding the Sprint factor. Exposing unit numbers might also expose Sprint's current success or failure. Perhaps they are 'protecting' one another? Sprint and Palm have always had a 'bromance' with one another.
yep, you nailed it. Sprint's exclusivity contract purportedly is based, at least partially, on their ability to sell the pre. Palm is in a position that requires them to protect sprint, and not give the appearance of engaging in any market games.
and, like I said, christmas is right around the corner. As a retailer, you need your supply chain full, and inventories rising NOW or else customers will be shopping elsewhere come black friday.
The thing is though, how many of those pres were ones that were given for broken pres?
As the article states:
put that in ur pipe and smoke it!
Hey Guys, I just want one of those Pre WWE action figures...Where can I buy one?
20 to 1 when he lands, he is going to reset, hell my Pre resets when I close the slider to hard.
You need to get your Pre replaced - that's a battery compartment issue that they've addressed.
lol noob
this eller is one of several analysts that has almost exclusively reported negative news related to palm and the pre. He's one of several who report rumor and speculation largely and if they get a fact blow it out of proportion.
Just one point of clarification: Palm did NOT say it had sold 810,000 Pres last quarter. It said it had sold 810,000 phones, the "vast majority" of which were Pres. We're left to guess how much that "vast majority" is.
I have been trying to figure out how many Pres have been sold but Palm seems to be hiding the actual numbers. We know for a fact that it is not 810,000. I also keep hearing that the Pre beat expectations. What expectations? If someone has the real numbers and can shed light on some publicly stated expectations, I would appreciate it.
The expectations of earnings. Palm, like every public company, was very clear on the financial numbers (regardless of their obfuscation of how many Pres were sold) of how much they earned in the past quarter, and this number was better than expected.
Hmm, though the 810,000 that Derek is quoting isn't the exact number of Pres sold, the "vast majority" of them are. So, if (for the sake of argument) we take that phrase at face value, the number would be something like 600-700k units of Pre, which is around or higher than the numbers given by a lot of analysts before the earnings were reported.
Just reading and learning... Im like a kid on christmas eve.... I cant wait till the nice delivery man brings me my pre tomorrow... by the way I had to get it in the mail cause the store was out of them...
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