HP TouchPad Not Selling Well

Six weeks after Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ) launched the TouchPad, its webOS-based answer to the iPad, the tablet was piling up unsold at the largest U.S. electronics retailer. On August 16, 2011, AllThingsD reported that Best Buy had taken delivery of about 270,000 TouchPads and sold only about 25,000 of them — less than 10 percent — and that even that figure might be “charitable” once returns were counted.

Best Buy told HP it was unwilling to pay for units that were taking up expensive space in its stores and warehouses, and asked HP to take them back. A senior HP executive, reported to be executive vice president Todd Bradley, was due in Minneapolis to talk the retailer down.

The TouchPad had launched on July 1 at $499.99 for the 16GB model and $599.99 for 32GB — iPad pricing, for a device reviewers found short on apps and sluggish in use. HP announced a permanent $100 price cut on August 10, and retailers layered spot discounts of up to $120 on top. Rich Doherty of the Envisioneering Group told AllThingsD that the “wildcat pricing moves” had taught shoppers to wait for the next markdown rather than buy.

What happened next. Two days later, on August 18, HP announced it would discontinue the TouchPad and every other webOS device, and said it was exploring a spin-off of its PC business. That weekend the remaining inventory was cleared at $99 and $149 — a fire sale that sold out within hours and briefly made the TouchPad the best-selling tablet after the iPad. HP later released webOS as open source and sold it to LG Electronics in 2013.