Palm Pre Smartphone To Match Apple’s iPhone Price
Following in the footsteps of Apple’s pricing of the iPhone, Sprint Nextel announced it plans to sell Palm’s long-awaited Pre smartphone starting on June 6 for $199.99 with a two-year service agreement, Reuters reported.
Sprint’s chief executive said on Tuesday he expects Pre shortages around the launch and some investors were disappointed that the price would match rather than beat the iPhone’s price.
However, it is typical that a new high-profile phone would be in short supply around its launch time, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Walkley.
Walkley suspected there might be a little disappointment about the launch price and the fact that Sprint Nextel indicated it would have limited supply.
The company is indeed expected to have trouble meeting initial demand for the device, according to a recent announcement from Sprint’s Chief Executive Dan Hesse during an investor conference.
Hesse said according to a Thomson Reuters transcript: "We don’t intend to advertise it heavily early on because we think we are going to have shortages for a while. We won’t be able to keep up with demand for the device in the early period of time."
The new Sprint Pre is being seen as Palm’s best hope to regain some of the smartphone market share from iPhone and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry.
But a new cheaper version of iPhone, sold by Sprint’s bigger rival AT&T, is expected to be announced by Apple as early as June 8 and some analysts say it could upstage the Pre.
Investors may be disappointed it will not be available sooner, according to CL King Associates analyst Lawrence Harris. He said it would’ve been nicer if the device were out in the market for a longer period before any potential iPhone.
He suggests the Pre is unlikely to lure away users of iPhone or BlackBerry, but it may stop existing customers of Sprint and Palm from switching to rival phones and service plans.
"It’s going to sell principally into the base, to existing Palm owners and existing Sprint subscribers," Harris said.
Sprint Nextel announced that the Pre would feature touch screen controls and a slide-out keyboard located under the phone. It will run on Sprint’s 3G network and feature personal and professional calendars, e-mail, and contact lists.
Pre was the most talked about device at the last Consumer Electronics Show January, where it debuted.
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