“Verizon Wireless, the carrier for the device, had 200,000 Droid phones on hand, and most stores sold at least half of their stock, Mark McKechnie at Broadpoint AmTech Inc. said yesterday,” Miller and Thomson report.
“Motorola and Verizon are competing against a new version of Apple’s iPhone, offered in the U.S. through AT&T Inc. Apple sold more than 1 million of the latest model in its weekend debut in June,” Miller and Thomson report.
MacDailyNews Note: Back in July 2008, Apple sold over one million of the previous model, iPhone 3G, in its opening weekend, too.
Miller and Thomson report, “‘It wasn’t as good as the iPhone, but anybody that was expecting that had their expectations too high,’ said Jim Suva, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in San Francisco… ‘I have this nagging suspicion that Android is being overestimated by technology enthusiasts,’ said KM Partners analyst Tero Kuittinen, who is based in Greenwich, Connecticut. He advises investors to sell Motorola shares, which he doesn’t own. ‘They haven’t really resonated with average consumers.'”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
Direct link to video via YouTube here.
I think Tero Kuittinen nailed it. The Android based phones are loved by engineers and tech heads, but really haven’t captured the minds of the consumer. Right now, it’s like the “Linux on the desktop” movement. Will that change? Maybe, it’s too early to say, but not any time soon.
I saw a Droid phone in a Verizon store. I was impressed until I tried typing on it.
“I have this nagging suspicion that Android is being overestimated by technology enthusiasts.”
Lol. Ya think so?
It’s a good thing there computer companies aren’t just going to walk in and make a better phone. Thank goodness Moto still knows what they’re doing.
But seriously, as a long time Mac user who had to suffer through the 450 Mhz G4 days, I find it hard not to cackle in smirking revenge every time I read about how Moto can’t even compete with Apple in their own damn business.
Is it just me, or wasn’t it already shown that Kuittinen, a Finn, is a Symbian lover?
And, the estimate of Droid sales, by a Broadpoint analysts, “most stores sold at least half of their stock”, sounds extremely vague and unscientific.
Why are mac fanbois all of the sudden playing the market share numbers card? You sound like Windows Advocates. Mac people should know good and well that the number of devices sold has very little to do with the success of the device. If the Droid makes Motorola money, then it is a success for Motorola. If Droid gets Verizon customers to upgrade their plans, then it is a success for Verizon. Droid doesn’t have to match the iPhone sale for sale to compete.
I don’t understand the hate from Mac Fanboys (which I am typically one) on Android. Android is a solid OS and participates in Open Standards. Apple doesn’t even make an iPhone for Verizon.
IMO, if for some reason you are stuck with Verizon, Droid is the best phone you can buy. If you are stuck with Sprint, the Pre is the best phone you can buy. If you are stuck with ATT, the iPhone is the best phone you can buy.
Any fighting here is completely ridiculous.
@ Dallasm
Do you make straw men for a living? Because they’re top notch, man.
Has anyone seen this article on Verizons network?
http://iphone.appleinsider.com/#12214-1-0
I’m sure 1/10th of the iPhones had defects. The iPhone breaks down a lot
@ Joel
Citation Needed.
I’m not sure it’s a fair comparison. Wasn’t this phone launched only in the US versus multiple carriers for the iPhone 3G and 3GS? If so, the fair comparison would be against 1st weekend of ATT activations.
(Of course, the first weekend does not a product make. Need to sustain long term volumes, as the iPhone certainly does.)
@ Dallasm
> I don’t understand the hate from Mac Fanboys (which I am typically one) on Android.
It comes from the anti-iPhone lies and hatred at the other end, and the way these competing products steal Apple’s ideas and claim them as “innovation.”
Verizon blatantly lies about iPhone in their silly “iDon’t” campaign. Palm tried to position the Pre as an iPhone killer and mooches off iTunes illegally. Both companies (Palm and Moto’s cell business) are at the brink of bankruptcy because their years of incompetence and complacency are finally catching up with them and now they’re trying to jump on Apple’s innovations and produce “me too” products while claiming them as superior to the original.
If these companies would produce a decent product and not hype it as an “iPhone killer” we’d be fine with it. Do you see any of us griping about the latest $29 touchscreen from Samsung or HTC?
@ the_steenmachine
Okay, the how about 700,000 for the original iPhone…?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/04/iphone-weekend-one-700000-sold-200million-profit-for-apple/
@Dallasm
Why are mac fanbois all of the sudden playing the market share numbers card?
That’s funny, ’cause no one in front of you said anything about market share.
I don’t understand the hate from Mac Fanboys (which I am typically one) on Android.
You don’t understand the “Mac Fanboys” hate?
I think the problem is, you clearly have identity issues. For starters you can’t decide how to spell the name and secondly, you can’t relate to your own kind.
Fanboys are haters, and contrarian by nature. But their disability comes and goes like the weather. Thankfully they are but a small, if not vocal, minority.
I think most of us here on these boards want a droid of some kind to succeed in the marketplace for competition’s sake. I feverishly dislike the way the media characterizes all up and coming phones as “iPhone killers”. Why not just call them iPhone competitors?
Anyone who objects to Verizon’s advertising approach regarding the iPhone should not overlook the fact that Apple has been bashing Microsoft unmercifully for years. I for one, can’t say I haven’t enjoyed it.
I think the droid is a beautiful piece of hardware, unfortunate for Motorola, Apple has changed the game and users now wants a beautiful SYSTEM and not just the nice piece hardware.
@ ChrissyOne
I had forgotten the first weekend sales of gen 1. Nice. Thanks for the reminder.
Well, my round-about points in the previous post were that many analysts are benchmarking recent sales of the Droid vs. (semi-) recent sales of the iPhone 3GS and stamping success / failure, which,
1) not an equal comparison
2) success / failure is better capture with a solid, longer term baseline.
Cheers.
“I think most of us here on these boards want a droid of some kind to succeed in the marketplace for competition’s sake.”
agreed.
“Anyone who objects to Verizon’s advertising approach regarding the iPhone should not overlook the fact that Apple has been bashing Microsoft unmercifully for years. I for one, can’t say I haven’t enjoyed it.”
i don’t mind bashing. if it is deserved i enjoy it. and I agree with the idea that the iPhones weakness is ATT…..
….but i don’t enjoy dishonest bashing. as far as i can tell, verizon is comparing its entire network to only the highest speed network from ATT. imagine for a moment that an ISP said they have the most available broadband because for their network “broadband” was defined as faster than a 14.4 modem and for the competition “broadband” was defined as over 7 megs. would that sit well with you? honestly?
i would like to see real legitimate competition to the iPhone if for no other reason than to force Apple to keep moving the ball. but BS ads aren’t the way to do it. actually building real products does.
“I’m sure 1/10th of the iPhones had defects. The iPhone breaks down a lot”
Yeah, that accounts for the highest customer satisfaction ratings of any phone, in the neighborhood of 90%. </sarcasm>
Comparing domestic sales of a new model phone in a saturated smart phone market to the release of a second or third generation iPhone is not exactly apples to apples fair. When the iPhone was first released in June 2007 it may have sold 200,000 in it’s first weekend. This may be a much better comparison.
Maybe this will bring back some memories: http://www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/analysts_estimates_for_apple_iphone_unit_sales_for_2007_and_2008/
I’m a free-market guy. I love competition.
Having said that, I think that one of the unique things about Apple is that they generally don’t need competition to “move the ball”. They seem to be able to do that themselves, competition notwithstanding.
AT&T;, however, is not like Apple. More competition for them is definitely prescribed to get their ball moving. Which is why I love the “Misfit Toys” advert. While I agree Verizon’s representation of network coverage manages to disregard some facts about network quality and speed, we can all pretty much agree that ATT&T;is the weakest with regard to the iPhone experience.
I think AT&T;is defensive not just because their customers are watching, but because Apple is watching too.
Sarasota:
Actually, for those with (very) short memory, Apple sold around 700,000 iPhones (EDGE) on the weekend of 30 June 2007 (the first ever release of the iPhone).
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/04/iphone-weekend-one-700000-sold-200million-profit-for-apple/
Dang!;my keyboard; is puking; semi-colons;today!!!
Deus Ex Technica:
It is not your keyboard; it is MDN’s handling of the ampersand sign (&) in the feedback field.
If you want to get rid of the ampersand, you will have to enter it like this:
& (i.e. ampersand sign, followed by amp, followed by semi-colon)
For the life of me, I can’t figure out why MDN won’t bother to fix this. One out of four stories here mentions iPhone or AT&T. Almost every comment in those stories will mention AT&T. And almost every commenter will end up writing ATT, or ATnT, or AT&T;(with the silly semi-colon at the end).
MDN, is it too much to ask, a few years after the re-design, to look into your code and fix this ampersand issue?
At this point, when I type AT&T, I had it committed to muscular memory to actually type AT&T… When I comment on other sites (that display the ampersand character without trailing semi-colons or other collateral HTML), I have to think, otherwise, I end up posting AT&T instead of AT&T…
To be fair, if Motorola had a built in group of cult worshipers who always do as they are told, then sales would have been higher.
and
“these competing products steal Apple’s ideas and claim them as “innovation.”
Like Steve Jobs did with Xerox?