Analysts get antsy, start making calls on Pre success
Ah, analyst estimations, how we missed your vague guesses so. At long last, the analysts have started rearing their heads about Palm (again), this time with Ashok Kumar of Collins Stewart and Ilya Grozovsky of Morgan Joseph issuing calls that amount to the coming death of Palm.
As quoted in Barrons, Kumar states that “momentum appears to have already peaked” and that Palm has cut production levels on the Pre for the rest of the year by 500,000 units. How he knows this, he does not say. Of course, this would be a very puzzling move, as Palm has planned launches in Canada, Australia, and Europe by the end of the year, and will be moving the Pre onto other US carriers early next year. It is worth noting that Kumar has been consistently negative on the Palm and the Pre, and doesn't even formally cover the stock as part of his roll at Collins Stewart.
And then there Ilya Grozovsky’s rating of PALM shares as a ‘sell,’ with the low low low target price of $7.50 (from a Thursday close at $13.55). Grozovsky’s unspecified checks indicate Pre sales in July were down to 100,000, half his estimate of 200,000 for June, and that sales thus far in August will end up even lower than last month. In total, Gozovsky is now expecting that Palm will move 350,000 Pre phones in this quarter, a cut of 50,000 from his previous estimates. He believes that the low numbers that Palm and Sprint have sold thus far may result in price cuts before this year’s holiday season, with concessions being made by Palm on the per-unit price to make up for Sprint’s hefty subsidization.
Of course, all of this analyst guesstimation could very easily be solved if Sprint and Palm were to just come out and tell us how many Pre phones have been sold. At this point, we won’t be too disappointed if it’s not a zillion units, just so long as we have a number.
Pre scores record satisfaction for Palm device
In a recent survey conducted by RBC Capital and ChangeWave Research, 87% of Palm Pre owners reported themselves as happy with their purchase, with 45% ranking as “very satisfied.” This seven-out-of-eight satisfaction level is the highest that any Palm device has ever scored in RBC’s surveys. The 45% very satisfied rating is also the highest Palm has scored, though it still ranks behind Research and Motion (48%) and Apple (82%). On the subject of Apple, a parallel survey was run of iPhone 3G S owners, who registered a whopping 99% satisfaction, a number that is, like most iPhone success metrics, both unbelievable and not surprising.
The same survey also explored what users liked and disliked about their respective phones. The favorite feature of both phones? The touch screen interface. There are a few interesting comparisons to be made in the results for dislikes, however. The top rated dislike of the Pre was its admittedly not-that-great battery life at 45%, and that same flaw registered at 41% disapproval on the iPhone survey, but only as the second most mentioned flaw - #1 was AT&T’s network at 55% dissatisfaction (the Pre’s tie to Sprint only registered a 11% dislike rating).
Interestingly, the Pre and iPhone scored statistically similar results for both touch screen interface satisfaction (47% vs. 45%) and ease of use (39% vs. 41%), as well as lack of support from their IT department (both at 8%). The survey also pointed out some distinct differences between the two phones: 21% of Pre users rated Synergy as one of their favorite features, while 8% of iPhone users cited the difficulty of importing their contacts into the phone. On third party apps, 24% of surveyed Pre owners were not satisfied with the App Catalog’s selection, while 31% of iPhone owners pointed to the App Store as one of their favorite features.
Most of us here at PreCentral probably fall into the very satisfied portions of the Palm Pre owner demographic, but we’ll readily acknowledge that the Pre does currently have its shortfalls. The iPhone has always had very high satisfaction ratings (new owners of the first generation iPhone rated at 92% satisfied), so it's satisfying for the Pre to score so well in comparison so soon after release (without the Apple aura to boot).
Be sure to check out the full survey results after the break.
[via: our friends at The iPhone Blog]