Galaxy Tab at a Rate of 16%

For a months, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab was really the only Android alternative to the iPad. Though things are certainly looking up now -- with the arrival of Android 3.0 and a deluge of tablets pc from CES -- before Christmas, the Galaxy Tab was kind of ‘it’ in terms of Android slates, and sales of two million showed that it was pretty successful.

However, it seems there’s also a pretty significant return rate on the tablets. All Things D points to research from ITG Investment Research, which tracked point-of-sale data from nearly 6,000 wireless stores in the U.S. from the November launch right up to January 15. The research firm estimates that from launch through to December, return rates for the Galaxy Tab were about 13 percent. However, this percentage grew as unwanted holiday purchases were ferried back to stores; ITG estimates return rates from December to January 15 to be about 16 percent.

Whether they were impulse buys, unwanted Christmas gifts, or the owners got wind of upcoming Tegra 2 tablets and decided they could wait until Q1 2011 for a meatier tablet, it’s a little bit of  black mark on Galaxy Tab’s record. Does anyone who returned their Galaxy Tab care to share the reason why?