Google Nexus One Disappoints
If you’re a huge fan of the Nexus One like Doug Simmons then you’re in the minority. Google’s earnings came out today…not pretty. It states that “the phone has not seen the same success in the market as the Droid and other alternatives. Previously we expected the phone would ultimately reach carrier stores for sale, which has not yet happened. Our prior estimate of 350k Nexus One’s sold in Q1 appears aggressive and we believe the number may be closer to 160k for Q1.” Wow – 160k sales – 45% of the expectations. Based on the blogspheres you’d think there would be at least another zero there, but those sales figures are worse than the Palm Pre’s and the Pre’s sales was considered a failure…
It’s an experiment gone wrong. Trying to sell a device sight-unseen is a bad idea and it had a number of issues ranging from 3G coverage to questions about its screen and when it hits stores there will be other devices (like the Incredible) so I don’t see why anyone would pick the N1 with lower specs.
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I am going to resist the urge to say “I told you so,” but I’m hoping that someone else does… 🙂
Matt Anderson told you so.
Actually I’m not sure an “I told you so” is warrented……determining device quality based on sales is unrealistic. There have been many devices which have had paper specs to die for, but have failed because the the market had not developed properly. Tablets are a good example, tablets have been around for several years, but are now just becoming popular.
It should also be noted that you are referencing a market analysts “opinion”,
Google did give the following statement during this afternoon’s Q1 earnings call:
“It is a profitable business for us. … We are driving the business to be a profitable business from the get-go.”
Added VP of engineering Jeff Huber during the Q&A session:
“We’re not disclosing the specific number … We are very happy with the device uptake and the kind of impact that it’s had across the industry.”
This being said, if sales were to have beat out the Droid numbers, they would have been more than happy to crow a little.
I found the following comments in the link below, to be a little more realistic
http://www.androidcentral.com/we-get-it-nexus-one-didnt-sell-many-droid-or-iphone
I was referring to this:http://www.mobilitydigest.com/why-the-nexus-one-cant-win/
where I say that the device is not poor but adoption rate will be slow. Exactly what the article above implies. I totally agree that the Nexus One is top quality hardware, and is quite a good purchase, but poor distribution decisions have killed what could have been a major device.
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