The BlackBerry PlayBook isn’t exactly late to the party and its sales numbers from launch day are actually better than expected. But the bad news is that those sales numbers aren’t exactly huge either.

Mike Abramsky is the General Manager over at RBC Capital Markets and he estimates that RIM managed to sell about 50,000 PlayBook tablets on launch day, including pre-order sales. That’s more than what some analysts had predicted and, if the number holds true, it means the PlayBook did better on launch day than the Motorola Xoom and the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

However, we can also put these numbers in some stunning perspective. You know about a little company called Apple? Yeah, they pushed out half a million iPad 2 tablets on the first day. That’s ten times what RIM was able to achieve. We can take that comparison for what it’s worth, but there you have it.

In my brief time with the PlayBook at CES earlier this year, I must say that I was impressed with the true multitasking and the slickness of the QNX framework. It’s far from perfect, but the PlayBook should be able to hold its own in the increasingly popular tablet world. Stay tuned for a full review once we’ve put it through the ringer.

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This is according to the Q4 2010 sales figures as released by Reuters, which is a little different that exact market share, but it does represent what people are buying. It’s only a matter of time. For Q4, a total of 33.3 million Android smartphones were shipped. Compare that to the 31.0 million Symbian phones shipped by Nokia, the previous leader.

What’s really interesting is that Symbian actually increased its sales (29.9 million in Q3), but it lost market share due to the more rapid adoption of Android (which had only 20.3 million devices shipped in Q3). Remember that it was only in Q4 2009 that Symbian had a 44.4% market share; that’s now dwindled down to 30.6%, despite an increase of about seven million units over the same period.

It probably helps that there are so many manufacturers on board with the increasingly mature Android platform. Compare it to the 16.2 million iPhones, and 14.6 million BlackBerry devices sold in Q4. Not surprisingly, Windows Phone 7 isn’t exactly all that popular just yet with just 3.1 million sold in Q4.

[Reuters via Engadget]

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According to a report released by Samsung over the weekend, they’ve been able to sell over 600,000 Galaxy Tab units since the product’s launch about a month ago. Bearing in mind that it’s not yet available in all markets, I’d say 600k sales isn’t that shabby. If they cut production by 50%, does this mean they were expecting to top 1.2 million in the first month?

The seven-inch Galaxy Tab sold about 30,000 units in its home country of South Korea since the Novembver 14 launch through SK Telecom. Global sales are aided by availability in 30 countries around the world, but I’m sure Samsung is going to expand that even further.

To be fair, about 7.5 million iPads have been sold since Apple started selling them back in April. The Galaxy Tab probably won’t reach those kinds of astronomical numbers, but as an iPad alternative, 600k is something to be proud of.

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For Q3, Android OS accounted for 44 percent of all smartphones sold in the United States. That’s an increase of 11 percentage points compared to Q2. By comparison, Apple’s iOS (iPhone) held relatively steady at 23 percent of phones sold and RIM fell to third with just 22 percent (it had 28 percent in Q2).

It’s easy to see why Android is becoming so popular. There are so many new Android devices out there that appeal to a wider audience: HTC EVO 4G, Motorola Droid X, Samsung Galaxy S, and so on. Interestingly enough, the top seller in Q3 was still the Apple iPhone 4, but Android has an aggregate beat it out by a factor of two-to-one.

Before all the BlackBerry fans raise a ruckus over this news, it should be noted that the information for NPD’s research came by way of Mobile Phone Track. They only track consumer spending in the United States and not corporate or enterprise mobile purchases. I’d imagine that RIM still has the lion’s share of that market.

SOURCE: Press Release via NDP Blog

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