Sprint sells 300,000 Evo 4G phones, but shortages worsen
updated 08:05 am EDT, Mon July 12, 2010
Evo 4G outperforms Pre but hurt by HTC shortfall
Sprint has sold about 300,000 Evo 4G phones since they went on sale in early June, analysts at Macquarie group estimated today [reg. required]. The demand is characterized as "strong" but has seen the supply shortages worsen over the past few weeks. Customers still can't shop for the phone at Sprint's online store despite weeks of availability at retail.
Most of the blame for the shortfall has been pinned on Samsung. Although the Korean company has primarily had problems shipping AMOLEDs to HTC as it decided to keep much of the supply for its own phones, it's now also understood to have problems shipping the 4.3-inch LCDs needed for the Evo 4G. HTC is switching to Sony LCDs for not just existing phones but future devices as well.
The supply problem is not only hindering Sprint's efforts to market its 4G network, before Verizon steps in with LTE late this year, but is also hurting Android's chances for success in the US. Motorola is still enjoying brisk sales of the Droid and could have a successful launch for the Droid X, but the combination of the Evo 4G's problems and similar Droid Incredible shortages is limiting Google's overall sales.
Evo 4G sales by themselves are small compared to those of the iPhone 4, which reached 1.7 million units in three days. Google, however, may be counting on the sheer variety of models and is selling about 160,000 phones per day, or about 14.4 million phones for every quarter.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Nov 2008
The analysts complain that Apple is so
careless in planning because they've had iPhone shortages after selling close to 2 million iPhone 4s in such a short period of time. Somehow, they feel that Apple should have been able to foresee demand and also be able to guarantee no shortages from parts suppliers or assembly bottlenecks. Yet HTC has been experiencing shortages of both the Droid Incredible and Evo 4G even after selling a lesser number of units than the iPhone 4. I'm sure that any company can be at the mercy of suppliers without necessarily "making a mistake". A company can't always foresee and compensate for overwhelming demand of a product. I guess that building displays is really a weak link in smartphone production.