One must live under a rock if he isn’t aware of the fact that barely days ago HP cut the price of its beloved (and dead) TouchPad tablet to $99. Considering the 200k units left over at Best Buy and who knows how many more remaining on stock out there, HP stands to lose big money. $400 million is the real number here, caused entirely by the price cuts.
HP is not only losing money on the basic tablet version, but also on the 32GB one that retails for $149. Also, they’re offering refunds to the people who bought the devices with the original prices. Canada and Australia are also supposed to get price cuts, as does the UK, where the 16GB model is found at 89 quid at Currys and Dixons.
What’s really bad here is that a 16GB TouchPad costs $306 to make or $318 for the 32GB more, so HP is selling them for big losses. We remind you that last week HP announced that they will give up webOS devices, sell off the PC business and buy enterprise search company Autonomy. This news comes a year after HP bought Palm specifically for the webOS platform, that it has now killed… Such a pity, since this OS had great potential.
