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Sony UX180P By the Numbers
Author: fil on June 29 2006
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People who enjoyed reading this: whydidnt, Alt, w0rn
From this link , Sony's tech support revealed that they had 750 UX180P units (North American model) available for sale with only 150 units preordered.

Last December, SonyStyle sold 500 units of the U750P and ended sales within a month of releasing the model and did not sell any additional units after January.

So this is good insight on Sony, the UX popularity, and UMPC/Handtops/uPC/microPC popularity.

With only 750 units being sold (at $1800 USD) means that Sony only believes that the US market is worth $1.35M USD for the microPC.

That's not very much considering they probably spent more than that developing, manufacturing, marketing, and selling the UX180P.

From what I know, Sony was selling 50,000 PS2s per month in 2002-2003, so that's $7.5M USD per month.

You have to wonder how the smaller players can remain in this industry and stay profitable.

ADD:
From this link , we can ascertain that there are at least 2,500 UX50 and the UX90 units in existence in Asia (these are the Japanese models). The prices start at ¥209,000 ($1,800 USD), so even at $2,000 USD this is only $5M USD.

Again, this is very interesting how low the volume and revenue is on the Sony microPCs/Handtops.
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Comments

I was surprised to read these numbers as well. Only 750 units for the entire US? Wow, I totally overestimated this market. I would have guessed it to be more than 50,000. Of course, unless you visit tech forums or happened upon the UX at Sony's website, you would have never known it existed. There hasn't been any marketing of this device and I don't think it's available at any retail outlets either.

We'll never really know if these are truly just niche products until a company really promotes one of these.
 

well that is only SonyStyle preorders, it doesnt count any other sites. once it starts showing up in actual stores with other VAIO's that should help alot.

i have always believed that this market will never take off until the big boys get involved (Dell, HP, etc). i know some people think Sony is a big boy, but actually they aren't. Sony's PC market is absolutely tiny by comparison. if u look at worldwide PC sales ud be suprised to see much lesser known companies easily outrank Sony.
 

The numbers are suprising. I, like whydidnt, thought the market was much larger than that. They way people were discussing how they were buyign one on here had me convinced the sony was going to do remarkably well.
 

Amazon.com told me that Sony isn't releasing the UX180Ps until SEPTEMBER 5. So I think the 750 might just be for Sony.

I had written them an email earlier asking why my expecting shipping date was September 7 if the $150 Amazon rebate expires on August 18. They said they'll still honor the rebate for me, but I'm not sure I can wait that long...
 

Right, thats 150 units with ZERO advertising. I havent seen a magazine add, nothing on TV...I think if they told the world about it, that 750 would be gone virtually overnight...
 

I'm pretty surprised by those numbers too... mostly it just reaffirms my decision to go with OQO. A wider userbase means a wider support group, and it generally helps with repairs if the company has enough units that it can replace defectives.

I think Jenn might have a point though... it's possible that this first wave was just a soft launch to get the product into the market and see how it does. I wouldn't be surprised to see a second wave with full on advertising to the business croud.

- Rooster
 


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