Samsung Scoffs at Tablet Surplus Speculation
Samsung says its policy is to decline comment on market speculation. But today the company made an exception to deny rumors that lousy sales have led to a massive oversupply of its Galaxy Tab Android tablet.
Recent reports have put excess Galaxy Tab inventory in the hundreds of thousands and claim that surplus–not the debut of 8.9-inch and 10.1-inch versions of the device–is the real reason Samsung recently lowered its price. Said Samsung spokesman James Chung, “We don’t comment on market speculation but such talk is absolutely groundless.”
It’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time Samsung has been dogged by reports that the Galaxy Tab isn’t selling as well as the company has let on. As I’ve mentioned here before, the high sell-in figures Samsung likes to tout don’t represent actual sales to consumers. Instead, they are the number of Galaxy Tab devices it has shipped to wireless companies and retailers around the world.
And then there are those return rates. ITG Investment Research, which tracked point-of-sale data from nearly 6,000 wireless stores in the U.S. from the Galaxy Tab’s November debut through January 15, found return rates running between 13 percent and 16 percent. Of course, Samsung disputed those figures, claiming the real percentage to be less than two percent. But it provided neither data or explanation to support that claim.