We had originally reported that the T-Mobile G1 has sold approximately 1.5 million pre-order units – this was an amazing number because for one, it’s a completely new platform and device and for another, it has done so with minimal marketing. Turns out, we might have to back off that 1.5 million claim because it is merely just an estimate.
InformationWeek has the details:
I contacted Anders Bylund, the author of the original Motley Fool article that hundreds of stories are citing. I was curious as to how he got these figures and he gave me his rationale.
He cited a Cens.com article that said, “according to industry insiders, T-Mobile is planning to order a total of between 1.5 million and 2 million units of G1 with HTC in the near future, including 400,000 to 500,000 to be sold in the fourth quarter of this year.”
Then, Bylund cited T-Mobile selling out of pre-order units, and tripling the number of phones initially available. He then tripled the 500,000 number to get 1.5 million.
The problem I have with this is that the 400,000-500,000 estimate is for all of the fourth quarter, and not necessarily the amount that T-Mobile made available for pre-order.
Selling 1.5 million pre-orders is definitely notable and something Google, T-Mobile, or even HTC would have officially commented on. So even if it didn’t yet reach 1.5 million units, it certainly did sell a lot..T-Mobile still ran out of their original pre-order allotment. T-Mobile and Google can still consider the G1 to be a victory, just not quite a ground stomping, world stopping success. Yet.
[InformationWeek]