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Nexus One a Failed Experiment In Online Sales

Posted by timothy on from the but-a-nice-phone dept.

shmG writes "The demise of the Google Nexus One phone is fairly straightforward: a lack of sales killed the product. While it will continue to sell through Vodafone in Europe, KT in Korea and a few others, the experiment of Google indicates that selling a phone direct to consumers online is dead. 'The bottom line is people like to look at phones in the store. Google has a lot to learn about phone sales, this is one lesson they learned.'"

6 of 366 comments (clear)

  1. False by mark72005 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The reason why the Nexus One failed is because it was so damned expensive out of pocket.

    1. Re:False by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly. Plus, people shopping for an upgrade phone wouldn't see it on their phone company's website.

      Failures:
      1. Large upfront cost. Consumers don't think about future costs.
      2. Not shoved in your face. Consumers aren't smart enough to seek things out.
      3. Too many hoops. People had to do too much work if they wanted to get carrier subsidizing worked out.

    2. Re:False by arkane1234 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm slumming on T-Mobile, and if this is slumming then call me homeless.
      Hella better than Verizon with customer service, features, and choices.
      The price is the reason I switched, and the rest sold me.

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  2. Competition by orcateers · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anyone else think that the Nexus One was a project designed to push Android adoption, and that Google's support for the hardware fell off because the rest of the Android hardware market bulked up sooner than they expected? it's an idea i've considered.

  3. Lack of promotion? by MrEricSir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I never saw the Nexus One promoted, nor a link to the store anywhere (except perhaps on Slashdot.) Google has used their pageviews to promote other products and services, for example their ads for Chrome.

    Could it be the reason Nexus One didn't succeed was simply a lack of promotion?

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    There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
  4. Was it really a failure? by jpmorgan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I guess that depends on what Google hoped to accomplish. From a pure sales perspective, the Nexus One didn't make a big dent in the market. But with Android, Google is trying something that Microsoft tried with WinMo, and failed at; one of the many reasons was stagnant, crappy and divergent hardware. I've never believed the purpose of the N1 was to sell a lot of phones... that was obvious from the selection of T-Mobile as the carrier... the purpose was to drive Android forward and keep it from falling into one of the traps WinMo fell into.

    So if you compare pre--N1 Android phones to phones in the post-N1 era, the difference is startling. Nexus One may have failed in sales, but it succeeded in pushing the ecosystem forward. And I suspect that's all Google ever really wanted.