Carphone Warehouse Offering Free Flights With Palm Pre

Is Carphone Warehouse finding it hard to shift its UK stock of Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre handsets? Amid speculation that sales of the Palm Pre have been flagging in the UK, the mobile retailer is offering two free flights to one of 15 European destinations to those who buy the Pre on a two-year O2 contract before January 31.


In Q1 Palm sold over 800,000 smartphones worldwide, with the “vast majority” of those being Palm Pre, according to the company. But the Pre will be fighting for shelf space among never devices from Google (NSDQ: GOOG), LG (SEO: 066570) and Palm itself, which has said it will launch products before the end of May.

O2, which has exclusive rights to sell the Palm Pre in the UK, declines to give sales figures for individual devices. It told us: “Palm Pre sales are in line with expectations and we are happy with them.”

But, if the rumors of slow sales are true, this might not be such a bad thing. As it is, the operator has admitted that its network is already feeling the strain of too much smartphone use.