Posted on Friday, August 19 2011 @ 22:50 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
ARS Technica
reports Best Buy is pushing HP to take back its TouchPads as sales figures are a disaster. The retail chain reportedly sold just 25,000 units across its stores and is still sitting on an inventory of around 245,000 units.
We faulted the HP TouchPad in our review for falling short in several metrics compared to the iPad, but at the same price. In recent weeks, many retailers carrying the TouchPad applied discounts of $50, then $100, in temporary flash sales that eventually became permanent as the tablets refused to budge. The biggest sale yet from flash sale site Woot, which sold the tablet for $120 off, got HP a meager 612 customers.
According to the same source, Best Buy took 270,000 TouchPads into inventory, and so far has managed to move less than ten percent of them—and that figure may not even take returned units into account. Best Buy reportedly no longer wants unsold TouchPads taking up space in its stores and warehouses, and is requesting that HP take the stock back.
Yesterday
HP announced plans to separate its PC business and the discontinuation of its TouchPad and webOS phone lineups.
