Just a day after Amazon announced its tablet, the Kindle Fire, more BlackBerry PlayBook discounts have appeared.
Best Buy has slashed the price on the Research in Motion tablet by a whopping $200. The 16GB tablet now costs $299, the 32GB version is $399, and the 64GB model is $499.
The discounts had already hit Best Buy in Canada, where the retailer knocked $100 off the price of the tablet and is offering shoppers an additional $100 rebate in the form of a gift card. But Best Buy Canada says this is only a limited-time promotion, good through Oct. 6.
Other retailers have also jumped on board with PlayBook price cuts. Both Staples and Office Depot have reduced the price of all three versions of the 7-inch tablet by $100 and are offering an additional $100 discount with a mail-in rebate.
RIM said in an earnings call earlier this month that it’s only shipped 200,000 PlayBooks in the last quarter, and the company is allegedly sitting on a stock of 800,000 unsold tablets. It seems the company is cutting production, too. PlayBook manufacturer Quanta announced last week that it would cut 1,000 employees from the Taiwan factory where it produces PlayBooks.
RIM hasn’t changed the official price of the tablet, but that doesn’t mean it won’t in the future. While these promotions might help boost PlayBook sales, RIM might be fighting an uphill battle, especially now that it faces competition from Amazon.
After months of anticipation, Amazon on Wednesday announced its Kindle Fire tablet, a 7-inch Android-based device that will sell for $199. With such a low price and access to Amazon’s vast library of content, the Kindle Fire is believed to be the first tablet that will actually be able to compete with the industry-dominating iPad.