Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) Nexus One has quickly become the most highly anticipated smartphone launch since the iPhone, but its launch-week sales did not live up to the hype. According to mobile analytics company Flurry, Google only sold around 20,000 Nexus One devices during its first week. Compared to the iPhone 3G S, Droid and MyTouch 3G, which sold 1.6 million, 250,000 and 60,000, respectively, the results aren’t impressive.
Flurry, which monitors usage of more than 10,000 developers’ apps on the iPhone and Android platforms, determined the forecast by detecting new handsets in its system, adjusting to account for varying levels of Flurry app penetration by handset and crosschecking estimates against Apple actual sales in its first week. According to the resulting figures, the Nexus One was outsold by Droid by more than 12 times, myTouch 3G by three times and iPhone 3GS by a full 80 times.
The 80-fold discrepancy with the iPhone can be attributed in part to the global availability of the iPhone 3G S and the fact that it was a third-generation device, but there are other explanations as well, Flurry said. The Nexus One was marketed, distributed and perceived differently than the other devices studied. Google first did an online soft launch of the Nexus One through its direct-to-consumer approach of distribution. This, coupled with a series of customer-service mistakes and an after-the-holidays launch, is one reason sales fell short.
Furthermore, carrier partner T-Mobile did little to market the Nexus One, as it did with the myTouch 3G. Flurry said that cannibalization may also be playing a role as the Nexus One competes against the myTouch 3G for any new T-Mobile customer.
“And while Google, in an effort to avoid channel conflict with T-Mobile, appears to have set the direct-to-consumer price for the handset at over $500 dollars, the high price point combined with the fact that the handset is only considered an “evolutionary” improvement over previous Android devices, indicates that Google did not take the steps to maximize first week sales,” the report said. “This is especially evident when one considers that among the most expensive costs associated with the launch – marketing – has not been incurred, and could have been applied to lowering the direct-to-consumer price point.”
doesn’t the HD2 also beat the nexus with features and cost and functionality?
No kidding..
1. right after xmas
2. No marketing
3. Droid had just and is still filling market demand for this.
4. The only selling point of this phone is the snapdragon processor, everything else seems to fall short of the droid and a bunch of snapdragons based on Android are coming.. who with any intelligence would waste money on a Nexus One right now…