Best Buy Bundling TVs and Tablets to Get Rid of Non-Apple Tablet Inventory


best buy 275Sales of non-Apple tablets have been dismal, with many of these devices taking up space on the shelves and stock rooms of electronics retailers. In order to clear out this excess stock, Best Buy is offering a free tablet with a TV purchase.
Best Buy announced on Tuesday that from August 21 through August 27, customers will get a free Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 when they buy a 46-inch 3D Samsung HDTV TV (priced at $1499.99).
Since the iPad debuted last April, Apple has shipped close to 29 million units, and in the second quarter Apple couldn't make enough iPads to meet demand. Sales slipped to 4.69 million from the previous quarter's 7.33 million. But in its third quarter earnings call last month, Apple said it had kicked sales up, moving 9.3 milion iPads in the quarter that ended June 25.
Digitimes warned of the risk of excess inventory for non-Apple tablet makers in May. It claimed that in 2011, there is only demand for 20 million units. Best Buy seems to be hoping bundling will at least help take some of these superfluous devices off its hand.

"This [bundling] is what they should have been doing from the beginning," Forrester analyst Sarah Rotman told the Wall Street Journal. "Other than the iPad there is no convincing standalone tablet. The only way anyone can compete is by bundling."
Best Buy is reportedly unhappy with how few HP TouchPads have sold. All Things D claimed yesterday that out of the 270,000 TouchPads Best Buy took on, only about 25,000 have sold. The retailer is allegedly so peeved about the excess stock taking up expensive space on its shelves and in its warehouses that it's refusing to pay HP for the unsold units.
The news of the excess stock is not surprising; at the beginning of August, HP placed a permanent$100 discount on the TouchPad, bringing the price down to $499.99 for the 32GB version and $399.99 for the 16GB version.
Bundling might be a solution, however Best Buy has made an interesting choice in terms of the products it is bundling together, considering sales of 3D TVs have been lackluster as well.