Samsung: Galaxy Tab’s actual sales “quite small”

Samsung would have you believe that their first Android tablet, the 7-inch Galaxy Tab, is selling like gangbusters… and it’s true it’s selling better than other Android tablets, and is largely what is responsible for Android reducing iPad’s marketshare to “just” 77%.
That said, Samsung has been being disingenuous about the Galaxy Tab’s actual sales numbers. There’s a reason why you don’t see people pulling out Galaxy Tab’s in public: while Samsung is shipping a lot of Galaxy Tabs to stores and carriers, their real sales are “quite small” according to company official Lee Young-Hee.
Here’s the thing: when a company releases sales numbers in an earnings call or press release, there’s two numbers they can dole out. The first is the number of units sold to customers, but this is the smaller number: the bigger number is the number of units “shipped” or ordered by stores.
You can see the problem: a company might want to give out the bigger number of how many units went to a retail store or big box, but that doesn’t actually mean the gadget’s a success. In the Galaxy Tab’s case, a lot of orders might be accounted for by retailers who don’t have a deal with Apple for the iPad, but want to have a tablet to sell people if they come in asking about one.
In other words, Samsung — which claimed to sell a respectable two million Galaxy Tab units last quarter — has actually sold quite a few less. Samsung’s success in “reducing” the iPad’s marketshare to just 77%, then? It might be, and probably is, significantly overblown.