Over 250,000 Motorola Xooms shipped: But how many actually sold?

According to the latest financial results release from Motorola Mobility, the company shipped over 250,000 Xoom tablets during the first quarter 2011, which is far less than its initial prediction at the beginning of the year.

The Xoom seemed like a strong competitor for Apple’s iPad when it debuted at CES, but interest in the device has been lower than expected since hitting retail stores.

The confirmed number of shipped units in the release was not accompanied by any indication of how many were actually sold to consumers, although some analysts estimate about 100,000 Xooms.

The company’s Chief Financial Officer Marc Rothman indicated that the tablets sell through was “good” and attributed the Xoom not shipping until halfway through the first quarter for why numbers weren’t higher.

However, other factors that could have possibly hurt Xoom sales include, the slightly higher pricing than other tablets, Apple’s release of the iPad 2 and customers holding out for a 4G version of the Xoom, which could be delayed even longer due to technical issues with Verizon’s LTE network.

Motorola may see a tiny bump in sales from both the diminished iPad 2 hype and the availability of the Wi-Fi Xoom from Sprint May 8.