Though RIM offered little detail regarding PlayBook's first three month shipment total of 500,000 during the firm's quarterly earnings report, DigiTimes claims the company has seen fit to lower its internal Q2 shipment projections as a result.

RIM previously expected to ship 2.4-2.5 million units to retail from mid-June to mid-September. 

Now it's believed the total is pegged at somewhere between 800,000 to 900,000 devices, down around two thirds.

Drop in demand

The numbers reportedly come from Taiwan-based supply chain makers, who report that strong day one sales of around 50,000 units soon fell away in the days that followed.

Analysts have not lost heart, however, with sales expected to pick up models with 3G, LTE and WiMAX support roll out to retail in BlackBerry's third quarter.

Indeed, even if PlayBook misses its shipment target by some margin, DigiTimes claims its performance will still bring it in at the vanguard of the non-iPad tablet market.

Its sources report that monthly shipments of rivals such as Motorola's Xoom, Acer's Iconia, and Asustek's Eee Pad Transformer come in at between 100,000 and 200,000 units.

[source: DigiTimes]