HP Restarts TouchPad Production, Analysts Confused

Hewlett-Packard is all set once again for a final round of production of its TouchPad, though a Sterne Agee analyst says its “ confusing” as HP probably lost $200 per unit at $99 sale.

Sterne Agree’s Shaw Wu said that HP’s decision to restart production may improve the value of the webOS software used by the tablet.

Last Tuesday, HP had announced that it was going to stop making tablet and the Pre phone and because of weak sales, it had cut the price of its tablet from $399 to $99 to exhaust the inventory.

“Pleasantly surprised by the excessive demand the low price had generated We have decided to produce one last run of TouchPads to meet unfulfilled demand,” wrote an HP executive in the company blog.

Making more could help satisfy purchase commitments to supply-chain partners, Wu noted.

Having more devices out there could make the webOS software more valuable to potential buyers, which he believes includes Samsung Electronics Co., Research In Motion Ltd. (the maker of the BlackBerry) and Amazon.com Inc., among others.