Blackberry Playbook finds its price and place

Blackberry Playbook, RIM’s maiden tablet entry has found its right price and place. RIM has slashed the price of Playbook last week by half and was selling them for Rs. 13490. Thanks to the reduced price, RIM Sold 12000 devices in 4 days. Not bad because, India is no country for tablets and the national average for tablet sales was set at 8000 devices per month by some estimates.

Redington and Ingram, RIM’s distributors are waiting for new stock. Good for RIM and probably to you, RIM will sell Playbook at the same price for few more days, a week to be precise.

We are pleased to see the excitement and overwhelming response to our limited festive season offer on BlackBerry PlayBook. I believe that the 16-GB and 32-GB version of the PlayBook is completely sold out in the retail channels,” Research In Motion Managing Director India Sunil Dutt said.  (Financial Chronicle)

What RIM should realize is everybody showed enthusiasm for the price and not for the occasion, though RIM attributes the success to the festive mood. New Year is anything but festive and is only a figment consumerism advocate’s imagination. No body receives a truck load of money on Christmas or on Jan 1^st. I haven’t.

To buy a device everybody either has to save for it or swipe it and pay for it later. For that to happen it doesn’t have to be New Year’s Eve, Christmas or Diwali. When the fine day comes, people will eventually pay for what it’s worth. Nobody will buy a Playbook on March 3^rd for Rs. 27000 just because it’s not Jan 1^st. They will be it if they think the Rs. 27000 is worth for a Playbook.

In this case, all the 12000 people who bought Blackberry Playbook between Dec 27^th and Jan 1^st bought it because they thought Rs. 13490 is what Playbook is worth and they all wanted to buy a tablet. Not because they found themselves with a hidden treasure on New Year’s Eve and felt that giving Canadian gadget maker something to cheer about is the best way to spend the treasure.

Here’s my advice to RIM: Keep the Playbook’s price at Rs. 13490 and make the ‘festive’ offer permanent.