“Motorola’s much-ballyhooed Rokr music phone–a joint venture with Apple Computer–has posted disappointing sales since hitting store shelves almost a month ago, says a report issued Tuesday by a stock brokerage,” Mike Hughlett reports for The Chicago Tribune. “The Rokr is the first of a line of Motorola phones that allows users to download music from Apple’s popular iTunes Web site, where songs cost 99 cents. The phone is the first iTunes-compatible portable music player, aside from Apple’s mega-selling iPod.”
“Stock analyst Mike Walkley at Minneapolis-based Piper Jaffray & Co. found ‘mixed to negative reviews of the much anticipated Rokr phone’ in his monthly survey of phone retailers, which was released Tuesday,” Hughlett reports. “Some stores noted strong early sales of the Rokr, but more stores were ‘indicating disappointment in the product,’ Walkley wrote in a research note. He surveys more than 100 stores in major U.S. cities. Walkley said weak Rokr sales in the near term shouldn’t hurt Motorola’s earnings. He and other analysts see music phones as a long-term opportunity, and they expect many different models from Schaumburg-based Motorola.”
Hughlett reports, “Motorola declined to release sales data on the inaugural iTunes phone, saying the company is in a ‘quiet period’ before releasing its third-quarter earnings. However, Motorola spokeswoman Monica Rohleder said Tuesday, ‘We are very excited about the product.’ Atlanta-based Cingular also declined to divulge sales figures. But Jennifer Bowcock, a Cingular spokeswoman, said the company was ‘pleased’ with the Rokr’s launch and that nationally, sales were meeting expectations… Retailers surveyed by Walkley cited ‘form factor’ as one reason behind disappointing sales. That’s industry talk for a how a cell phone looks and feels. ‘The first Rokr just doesn’t have that ‘coolness’ factor,’ Walkley said.”
Full article here.
Advertisement: Apple iPod nano. 1,000 songs. Impossibly small. From $199. Free shipping.
Big surprise.
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o thats a big surprise…. didnt they make cell phones that play music and video games and other crap and that obviously didnt take off.
if it was half the price and held 750-1000 songs, i’d THINK about it
but in its current configuration and price structure
i have zero interest
cheers
iRadio will be Motos next savior. Yeah right. Next.
<sarcasm mode=off>
The problem is not the phone , but the carrier. And it the first phone that plays Itune. I was going to to buy one, but I got the razor instead and waiting on the new IPods with videos. It still a good Idea but bad timing.
Apple fans are loyal to a point but even they can recognise a dog
Or the headline in Motospeak:
“RPRT: MOTO ROKR SALZ DIZAPNTNG
SO L33T!
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Even if the phone itself was great, I wouldn’t buy it because Cingular absolutely sucks.
Here in the UK the ROKR is free with a contract but just looks too large and ugly alongside the latest offerings from Sony Ericsson. I don’t know a single person who has chosen a ROKR. The Sony Ericsson K750 and W800 are often sold out, while the ROKR is still available even when offered with a free Bluetooth headset.
Um, maybe ’cause it’s fugly. Even their faux iPod TV spots are just not quite up to Apple’s creativity standards.
BTW, what’s with the pop-under ads I’m now getting with Safari?
The RAZR2 coming in the spring will also feature iTunes, but won’t be as awkward or clunky as the ROKR.
Now if Verizon will just sell the damned thing without the cool features disabled. I’d really love to have a phone I can sync with my address book.
The ROKR seems to be an ill-planned experiment. If Moto were serious about it, they could at the very least make it LOOK nice. It’s as if they dug in their parts bins and came up with a reject design from the 90s. The RAZR is not such a great phone either but at least it looks cool. If the ROKR looks half as good as the RAZR, maybe they get enough people to try it. Most people nowadays wouldn’t be caught dead with a relic like the ROKR.
MW: why. Why did Motorola bother with this “design”.
What would the sales have been without iTunes? Or should I say sale.
They should have included a vibrator.
when the iTunes RAZR comes out, THEN the ROKR idea will work, until then, sales for iTunes phones will be low. Part of the iPods success is it’s beauty, most of the RAZR’s success is it’s beauty. An iTunes RAZR will be sucsessfull.