Nexus One a Failed Experiment In Online Sales 366
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.'"
Re:False (Score:1, Informative)
Re:False (Score:5, Informative)
But wireless contracts tend to be the same price whether you're paying off a loan or not; in other words, you're just wasting a lot of money if you didn't get a phone+contract from your carrier.
Re:False (Score:5, Informative)
Not with T-Mobile. Go look at their site.
Re:False (Score:5, Informative)
T-Mobile does give a discount for bringing your own phone. It is why once the contract on my droid I will be going that way. That and they have phones with unlocked bootloaders.
Re:False (Score:3, Informative)
I think you could get a subsidy if you wanted to slum around on T-Mobile, actually.
Yes, you could get an upgrade price on T-Mobile...but only if you had an individual plan. If you had a family plan, and wanted to upgrade one of your phones to a Nexus One, you had to pay full price for the unlocked phone.
Re:False (Score:3, Informative)
Tmobile has the Even More Plus plans which are for unsubsidized phones and are cheaper than an equivalent subsidized plan. If you did the math it was cheaper to buy a Nexus One outright and get the Even More Plus plan for two years than it would have been to get the phone subsidized through Tmobile ($200) and spend 2 years on contract with an equivalent subsidized plan.
There are also situations like my own where I wanted to upgrade to an Android phone but was locked into another year on AT&T thanks to signing a 2 year agreement to get an iPhone 3gs subsidized. I sold the 2gs for almost as much as I spent on the N1. Having phones not locked to carrier contracts gives the user much more freedom.
What people don't realize is that paying full price for phones and getting plans without the subsidy built in is not only cheaper in the long run but much less restrictive (Tmobile's Even More Plus plans for instance don't require a contract). The problem is that Tmobile is currently the only carrier that offers such a plan and the carriers for the most part love their lock-in. Google had the right idea, they didn't put the effort into it or stick with it long enough.
USA subsidising model (Score:5, Informative)
To be more precise, it seem to be that the problem stems from how the subsidizing is done in the USA :
- Carrier get exclusitive arrangement on certain model.
- Said model is only available at their (physical or online) store
- The only way to get a subsidised phone is through these stores.
This pretty much fucks up the market, because you don't get a free choice of service provider and phone. You pick one and you'll be restricted for the other.
And a phone without an exclusivity contract has just no choice.
Contrast the situation in several European country (including Switzerland, for a precise example) :
- Service providers don't give a damn about exclusive phone models. They compete purely on services and data plans.
- Phones are available in various shops depending on what the store's suppliers has, not who has signed an exclusive contact with whom.
- Thus most major phone companies (Nokia, Motorola, SonyEricsson, Samsung) are available in most shops (mostly in brick and mortar shops)
- Some shops could even import less known brands (Palm, Google, the first Android based HTCs, etc.) (mostly imported in computer-parts shop and other shops for technically savvy people).
- Subsidising is done at the shop level : You subscribe to or extend a contract with the service provider of your choosing available in said shop, and the provider will give a rebate that you can redeem on any phone of your choosing (as long as the phone is also in this shop's catalog)..
- Phone and service aren't linked. Service providers don't give a damn on which phone you used their rebate, as long as you sign a contact with them.
- You can actually use the Phone with a different SIM or even offer it as a present to your significant other, etc. (no SIM lock).
- As long as you keep the contact for said duration the provider is happy, they'll only get annoyed if you cancel the contract prematurely (you'll have to reimburse a part of the phone depending on how early you cancel).
Results :
- Phones from big companies have all their chance.
- Phones from less known companies can still get sold in some quantities through smaller shop specialising into import from those compagnies.
- Service provider have to concentrate on providing good services, because that's the only criterium they compete on.
- No phone company can hope to get away with shitty service just because the sell some magic Jesus-phone. If the service sucks, the users will simply get the phone with another service provider.
Re:Online isn't the problem, it's carrier subsidie (Score:3, Informative)
TMobile's unlimited everything no-contract plan was $20/month cheaper than the subsidized plans, making the unsubsidized N1 cheaper than one under contract over 2 years.
Re:Competition (Score:3, Informative)
Re:False (Score:3, Informative)
Hella better than Verizon with customer service, features, and choices.
I think it depends on where you're using the phone. If I'm near an ocean of some kind, my experience with T-Mobile has been pretty good. When I've been further inland is when things turned sour. I had no service anywhere east of Spokane, Washington through the entire western half of Montana, for example. All the features in the world don't matter if you can't connect to their network.
FWIW, Nextel was the same way if not worse. I went on a longer drive with one of their phones back in 2006, and I didn't have service between Spokane and Chicago. Meanwhile, the AT&T phone I'd brought along from work had service except in the most remote rural parts of Wyoming.
So far T-Mobile has been the least offensive option for cellular service that I've found, but if I lived farther from a city they probably wouldn't work out very well.
Re:False (Score:5, Informative)
I bought my Nexus One outright for $529 plus tax, and pay T-Mobile $60/month (plus $4 tax) for unlimited data, unlimited texts, unlimited night and weekend talk, and 500 prime time talk minutes/month. If I'd taken the subsidy and bought the phone for $179, then I'd have to pay $80/month for the same deal. Similar plans are at least $100/month on Verizon or ATT, and $80 on Sprint.
By foregoing the subsidy, I paid an extra $350 for the phone. But over 24 months, I save $20/month or $480, so (at 0% interest) I come out ahead by $130. Also, the phone is unlocked so I can pop in an ATT or European or Asian SIM card, and talk economically on the phone anywhere. And if I was unhappy, I could sell it on eBay.
But I'm not unhappy - it's a terrific phone at a great price.
Re:False (Score:3, Informative)
With data, you save $20 per month and $480 over 2 years: http://www.t-mobile.com/shop/plans/Cell-Phone-Plans.aspx?catgroup=Individual&WT.z_unav=mst_shop_plans_individual [t-mobile.com]
Re:False (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you were already a t-mobile customer. Then you had to cancel your t-mobile contract, and sign back up because the full discount was only available to new customers.
I called and told them I wasn't happy about that, they said that they understood and the policy was under review but there was nothing they could do. Then they offered me discounts on a 3G Slide instead.
Personally, I think a big part of the problem with the Nexus One pricing was that it wasn't simple enough, depending on how you bought it I believe there were 4 different prices available. Most phones there are two, with contract and without contract.