Sales for the Motorola Xoom tablet and Atrix smartphones--launched in February--are "well below forecast," Faucette asserted in a research note, with competition from Apple's products and from inexpensive Android smartphones hurting Motorola's sales.
Verizon Wireless, however, which sells the Xoom, said on March 7: "We are pleased with customer response to the Xoom." Verizon almost never reveals sales figures and did not this time either.
The Motorola Atrix 4G is a 4-inch Android smartphone on AT&T, shipping with an older version of the OS (2.2 instead of 2.3). Starting at $199 (with a two-year contract), the phone has a 5-megapixel camera, and you can buy separately an 11.6-inch laptop-like dock ($500), extending the phone's capabilities with two USB ports, a full-size keyboard, a touchpad, and stereo speakers.
The Atrix went on sale just a few weeks after the Verizon iPhone debuted, which may have contributed to the low sales that analysts are reporting. While the Verizon iPhone is said to have sold over a million units (topping February smartphone sales) Faucette said that AT&T customers favored the cheap $50 iPhone 3GS and HTC Inspire over the Atrix 4G.
Motorola's iPad competitor, the Xoom, did not fare any better in sales either, with the iPad 2 launched shortly after the Xoom's availability. The 10-inch Xoom is Motorola's first Android 3.0 tablet, which looks obese in comparison to the slender iPad 2.
In PCWorld's review, the Xoom scored 3.5 out of 5 stars, with one note on pricing: The tablet cost $800 contract-free on Verizon, or $600 with a two-year contract. In comparison, the iPad 2 starts at $499 (with no 3G and just half (16GB) of the Xoom's storage). The Xoom also had a few initial hiccups: SD Card support was not enabled, and Flash support came on the tablet only weeks after launch. The less expensive Wi-Fi-only Xoom ($599) is on a par with the 32GB iPad 2.
Follow Daniel Ionescu and Today @ PCWorld on Twitter