Originally Posted by SharonW:
What I also find interesting, or just indicative of the laissez-faire analysis conducted by analysts is that nobody seemed to notice the difference between the sell-in rate of 823,000 versus the sell-through rate of 810,000. It is my understanding, and I could be wrong, that sell-in is the figure showing the number sold to the carrier, i.e. sold into the channel, and that sell-through is the actual number sold to the subscriber. If so, the disparity is remarkably tight and would mean that with the exception of 13,000 units, every phone they've produced has been sold.
In general, this might be true of a low-return-rate (i.e. 1%) product. What this doesn't take into account is the number of phones in refurb limbo.
Sell in = Pres shipped by Palm
Sell through = Pres sold by retailers (Sprint, BB, Radio Shack)
Refurbs, on the other hand, are phones in channel that have already been tagged as sell-in and sell-through, but generate no revenue either in sales or in monthly fees. The 13,000 Pre difference is most certainly new stock at retailers (which adds up to a fraction over one new Pre per retail outlet when you add up all the potential sites), but doesn't account for the refurbs moving around through the system. At a mere 5% return rate (an industry low), that would account for another 25,000-34,000 Pres (based on 500,000 to 680,000 sold) not generating any sales or monthly revenues for Sprint or Palm. The number of refurbs is probably higher than that (for example
this link which would make the refurb numbers closer to 50,000-75,000 total). That's a lot of phones in the system not generating $100 in monthly revenues, but sucking up shipping, repair, storage, and inventory costs.
Just a thought.