BlackBerry PlayBook Sales At 250,000 Units?

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Last we heard about the BlackBerry PlayBook, it was said to be selling better than the collection of Android tablets out there, but not as good as the market colossus – the iPad. Now, we’re getting an update on the sales race. RIM themselves has not announced any information, but RBC Capital Markets themselves is chiming in on how well they think the PlayBook is doing.

RBC Capital Markets’ Mike Abramsky reported, according to tech blog BGR, that about 250,000 BlackBerry PlayBooks have been sold to date. Abramsky wrote this on a note that went out to investors on Wednesday. If Abramsky’s numbers are accurate, the PlayBook is doing about double the sales that the Motorola Xoom had done. The PlayBook has been out for about one month, while it was reported that the Xoom had 250,000 units shipped after two months. Both, are over shadowed by the iPad 2, which by industry estimates, had sold over 1 million units after two months.

In total, Abramsky believes that RIM can sell 500,000 BlackBerry PlayBooks in its first fiscal quarter on sale. That would mean about 2 million PlayBooks sold per year, a far cry from RBC’s initial pre-launch prediction of 6 million PlayBooks being sold in its first year, as BGR points out.

Abramsky also said that his store checks show that sales of BlackBerry phones are down. This makes one wonder when/if RIM will start putting their QNX-based BlackBerry Tablet OS on phones. They have been dodgy regarding that speculation. Rumors out of the company have ranged from “This is basically BlackBerry OS 7” to “No, this is just for tablets.” I don’t know, but I just reviewed the PlayBook (more on that on a bit) and he operating system is a great, stable and solid, with a fantastic new UI.

I did just review the PlayBook for TFTS. It’s a great device, with a lot of potential, but it’s plagued by a lack of apps. You can read my whole review here.