Motorola Xoom: Only 100,000 Tablets Shipped in Q3 2011

Tweet

Motorola Mobility may have earned some solid backing with Google’s acquisition of the company. But with lackluster tablet performance in the past few quarters, Motorola will need a flyer to get back in the tablet game.

Motorola Mobility was the first manufacturer to come out with an Android Honeycomb tablet earlier this year, with the Motorola Xoom. But in its 3rd Quarter 2011 earnings call, Motorola has disclosed dismal tablet sales figures, amounting to a total of 100,000 Xoom tablets shipped in 3Q 2011.

The figure corresponds to the number of tablet computers Motorola has shipped to channel partners and distributors, although this doesn’t necessarily reflect the number of units actually sold to customers.

In contrast, Apple has announced shipping 11.1 million iPads in its 4th fiscal year of 2011, corresponding to 3rd calendar quarter of the year. Will Motorola be able to pose a serious challenge to the iPad and even other popular Android-based tablets with dismal sales?

Motorola is aiming to improve sales figures by dropping the prices for the Motorola Xoom to $400. Likewise, the company is already running its free LTE upgrades for customers on the Verizon network. However, as both of these efforts were started this 4Q 2011, Motorola is hoping that sales figures will improve by year end.

Motorola is also planning to launch the next-generation Xoom tablets, the Xoom 2 and the Xoom Media Edition. But with the popularity of the iPad, and emerging Android-based tablets like the Amazon Kindle Fire, does Motorola stand a chance?