Motorola not planning orders for iPad-competing Xoom past June - report

Motorola's newly released Xoom tablet will already receive fewer orders from its manufacturer starting in the second quarter of 2011, according to Digitimes. Sources told the industry publication that Motorola will gradually drop its Xoom orders each month beginning in the second quarter.

Orders are expected to decrease to around 300,000 units in April, down from between 400,000 and 500,000 in March. And shipments will go below 300,000 in May, the report said.

In fact, Motorola's current schedule only has the company placing orders for the Xoom until the end of June, sources reportedly told the Taiwanese publication.

"The sources believe the unclear market status of iPad-like tablet PCs is the reason for Motorola to reduce its orders," the report said, "and the company may launch a new Xoom model in the second half after evaluating the situation."

Shipments of the Xoom are expected to reach between 3 million and 5 million in 2011. The Xoom was hyped with a Super Bowl advertisement before the 3G-radio-equipped version of the touchscreen tablet went on sale in February.

Those sales estimates are well behind the market leader, Apple's iPad 2. DigiTimes reported earlier this month that shipments of the iPad 2 are expected to reach between 10 million and 12 million in the second quarter of 2011 alone.

Apple is reportedly on track to hit a target of 40 million iPads produced in 2011. Apple sold a total of 15 million iPads from its debut in April 2010 until last December, for a total of $9.5 billion in revenue.