PC manufacturer Lenovo has claimed that Samsung Electronics only sold 20,000 Galaxy Tab devices out of the 1 million units it shipped in 2010.
In December, the Korean electronics giant said that it had shipped one million units of the original Galaxy Tab tablets, which was made available in the United Kingdom in October 2010. The claim, coming from one of Samsung’s top rivals, came despite having no evidence to back it up.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab was the first major tablet to compete with Apple’s iPad. Powered by a 1 GHz Hummingbird ARM-based processor, the tablet came with 16 GB of storage space, 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, and rear and front cameras.
Andrew Barrow, Lenovo Western Europe’s director of consumer products and pricing, however, told the Guardian that Samsung only sold 20,000 units of the 1 million tablets shipped in 2010.
Barrow then claimed that any tablet manufacturer that tries to undercut the iPad would end up losing money, saying that “any [manufacturer] would be giving money away.” This seems to have been the case for Hewlett Packard (HP), where it is estimated that it made a loss between $100 and $200 million on its Touchpad.
Samsung Electronics has not released official sales figures for the original Galaxy Tab, but it said that it has shipped one million units. The number of gadgets a maker ships is the number of units shipped to Best Buy, Amazon, wireless carriers and other retailers. If these devices don’t sell, retailers have the option of returning them to the manufacturer.
Lenovo’s comments come after the Galaxy Tab 7.7 has been removed at the IFA show in Germany, after a Düsseldorf court banned the sales of the device in the country.
via: The Guardian
