Palm Pre running between 2% and 3% Return Rate.
Tony Peric
According to a report by Scott Moritz of TheStreet.com, the Palm Pre hasn't flopped at all. In fact, return rates for the Palm Pre continue to be lower than most other smart phones on the market. As stated in the article, this could make Palm extremely attractive to a take over bid by several companies "The success of Palm's WebOS increases the chance that a larger player -- think Nokia (NOK Quote), Hewlett-Packard, Motorola -- could buy Palm as a quick entrance to the fast-growing smartphone market." Don't forget that Dell was also mentioned several times before to buy out Palm and get it's own rumored phone into the market. With returns as low as RIM's Tour (which I returned btw), this is the beginning of several unique devices to come from Palm and Sprint.
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Reader Comments (5)
Hi,
You do realize that "return" is different than "exchange" correct.
Returns are those who no longer want to be a Pre owner where as an exchange is just that..
The return rate may be at the amount you quote in the article and your source quoted may be correct.
The exchange rate is quite a bit larger than that though and does not make the Pre the success you imply.
In fact, sales have bottomed out to the point that Sprint may lose their exclusive with the Pre because of low sales, high exchange rate, and low inventory.
I know this is a fan site but when you venture into presenting news stories, it would be nice to see some objectivity and some attempt to report the whole story.
@yowsers, this is no more biased then the Jim Cramer slating of Palm on his tv show "Mad Money" and claiming it has a "return rate" of 40%. People know what returns are and what was written is exactly what they meant. It is you that misunderstands that situation.
It is others like jim cramer that fail to understand the definition of "return" and seem to, without credible grounds, claimed that return rate was 40%. Maybe Jim meant exchanges. However he did not say that on mad money.
But to claim that "In fact, sales have bottomed" flies in the face of your request of "objectivity." That "fact" is also speculation as there are no sales figures released yet just spectulation. So you've both not been obective while wrongly slating the author for his lack of understanding and objectivity when it is you that lacks the understanding.
Hi,
I would venture my post is more objective than the original article posted.
Also would venture to say that my opinion on sales figures comes pretty accurate too.
Just because something is posted or said elsewhere on the net or television that is not favorable to Palm or the Pre does not make it wrong or not the truth.
well the author went to actual stores and tracked inventory and sales. i'd guess you haven't but you can feel free to provide more ACTUAL sales numbers if you have them. But since nobody outside of palm has official ones i'd guess you're "sales have bottomed" is behind first Palm and second a guy that actually tracked store on the scale of credibility.
again. Cramer said returns were 40%. The article from his own site thestreet.com has an analyst contradicting that as wildly inaccurate. Palm CEO said, that the speculation on the amount of returns is inaccurate. But the exchange rate was not at dispute nor was it what has been claimed at 40% in the media. nobody could claim there haven't been exchanges. But to pose as "fact" something that is hardly provable while berating someone a bit seems misquided to me. You may be right. but it's hardly a "fact" at this moment in time. My point is you're opinion strikes me as no more "objective" when at least the other guy did his own research.
I'd be curious to know what the exchance rate is. On our family plan we bought 5 palm pre's. While they take a little getting used to for us less than savy gadget users we do really like them. However of the five phones we have had to exchange two of them and there appears to be two more that will need exchanging. Our problem was that when we are in the "phone mode" the screen will go black. It is like the screen just dies out. Hope this is not going to be an ongoing problem with these phones. Hopefully all the kinks have been worked out already.