Monday, November 30, 2009

Droid sales start strong

Industry analysts are reporting that Verizon Wireless and Motorola have likely sold between 700,000 and 800,000 Droids since the device was launched in early November. In his research note, equity analyst Mark Sue (RBC Capital Markets), says that sales of "1 million Motorola Droids [is] achievable for 4Q09." This would be a tremendous milestone, not only for Motorola and Verizon Wireless, but even more so for Google, whose operating system underpins the Droid.

Motorola Droid, (Credit: Motorola) Whatever new ground the iPhone has broken, its position of market dominance is about to be overwhelmed by this device. AT&T simply does not have the market coverage that Verizon Wireless has. And while the Droid isn't quite as good as the iPhone, history has shown that consumers will gladly sacrifice elegance for cost and utility. This is the same story as Mac versus the PC that played out in the 1990's. The old Mac operating system was vastly superior to the DOS-based PC, and later to the early Windows machines. But at less than half the price, the market clearly voted in favor of Microsoft and has only taken brief glances back.

Again, the iPhone is a better device. But in the end, that simply will not matter.

Source: Big marketing budget drives Moto Droid sales
by Marguerite Reardon, Senior Writer, CNET

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