It’s not often that we see Google fail at one of their ventures, but they just couldn’t make this work. Today Google has announced that they will no longer be selling the Nexus One through their online phone store, google.com/phone. They released the statement today on the official Google Blog, For now you can still purchase the Nexus One online, but it won’t be for that long. Google is currently in talks with various carriers and retail outlets about getting the N1 up for sale in-store and at a subsidized price.
Google had hoped they would change the way consumers bought mobile phones with their Nexus One sales model, it just never panned out. I mean people want to see and feel what they’re getting, not hoping and guessing. That was the main problem with Google’s plan. The lack of subsidized deals, didn’t help either. Most people ended up having to shell out over $500 to get the phone., and at that, Google offered almost NO support with the high price tag.
More retail availability. As we make Nexus One available in more countries we’ll follow the same model we’ve adopted in Europe, where we’re working with partners to offer Nexus One to consumers through existing retail channels. We’ll shift to a similar model globally.
From retail to viewing. Once we have increased the availability of Nexus One devices in stores, we’ll stop selling handsets via the web store, and will instead use it as an online store window to showcase a variety of Android phones available globally.
This is Google’s new plan for the Nexus One says Andy Rubin, Google’s VP of Engineering. It’s really all the can do now, since the decline in sales and the recent announcements from Verizon and Sprint, both of which are going forward without the Nexus One in their futures. There are already rumors of the Nexus Two floating around, which could be made by Motorola (from what I hear). Plus the recent releases of the Droid Incredible and the Sprint Evo 4G, really makes it whole lot harder for the Nexus One to stay near the top.
There is no timetable for when the Google will shutdown online sales or when we can expect to see it in retail stores like Best Buy or even WalMart.
[via Official Google Blog]
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