It was pretty much expected that a smart phone made available only through an online store would not do so well –especially if the online store ships only from one region and has locked availability of the device to only four areas of the world.
This was Google’s great big marketing plan for the Nexus One which pretty much explains why they only managed to sell on 20,000 units of the device during the first week and are still performing badly until today. Prior to the launch of the Android smart phone, it was announced that Google expected to sell over three million units of their self branded smart phone, the expected number has dropped since then, and it was recently reported that Google now expects to sell around 1 million units by the end of the year.
Considering how badly the device is doing, even the 1 million mark will be pretty hard to reach. Regardless if the phone is subsidized by Vodafone in the UK, the fact that it is not available without having to order online is a very discouraging practice for a consumer. While this may keep Google in good graces with their manufacturing partners such as HTC, LG and Sony Ericsson; the choice of having a bad marketing plan reflects pretty badly for the company.
With the HTC Desire bound to show up on shelves in a matter of weeks, it would serve as a significantly better alternative to the Nexus One as the two devices are pretty similar in specs. Both have 3.7 inch AMOLED capacitive touch screens, 1GHz Snapdragon processors and 5 mega pixel cameras. All in all, the two devices are almost evenly matched.
Get to know more about the lowered projected sales for the Nexus One Android smart phone at Tech Radar.
Tags: Google-Nexus-One