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Analysts: Motorola Xoom sales still weak

New estimates for sales of Motorola's Xoom tablet are out and even high-end forecasts point to a tepid reception for the Android 3.0 device.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
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Brooke Crothers

New estimates for sales of Motorola's Xoom tablet--available since late February--are in, but even the most optimistic predictions are scarily small and pale next to the iPad 2's first-weekend sales numbers.

With Motorola Mobility due to report first quarter earnings on Thursday, analysts today released a new round of sales estimates for the first tablet from a first-tier supplier to sport Google's Android 3.0 operating system.

Let's break this news gently and start with the most rosy forecast. Sanford Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu expects Motorola to announce it shipped 200,000 Xooms, according to an AP report.

Motorola Xoom continues to struggle in the shadow of the iPad.
Motorola Xoom continues to struggle in the shadow of the iPad. Motorola

Another analyst went so far as to say that "Motorola survivability risks have grown," according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, citing Global Equities analyst Trip Chowdry. Chowdry's estimates are all over the map, but his high end isn't very high at 120,000 (the low end is 25,000).

How do these numbers stack up against the irrepressibly popular (and chronically sold out) iPad 2? Apple sold about 1 million units during the first weekend of sales. Estimates of early Xoom numbers were 100,000, according to Deutsche Bank. Sales of the Xoom began on February 24.