They're selling a phone that on first appearances looks to be iPhone-like in terms of hardware quality. That's great, it looks like a fabulous phone. But Google doesn't have the cult following among smartphone buyers that Apple does. Yes, there are a ton of Android fans out there that would buy an Android phone over an iPhone no matter what. But their brand loyalty isn't to Google hardware. They're buying Samsungs, HTCs, Sonies, and LGs right now. They've probably owned a Galaxy phone for 5-6 years now. If anything, their loyalty is to another manufacturer, as Google hasn't really sold a ton of Nexii to the general public over the years.
Google's not selling these phones in retail stores (except Verizon), so they won't get a ton of purchases from people headed to their T-Mobile, AT&T, or Sprint stores who haven't made up their mind what they want before they step into the store. They're not going to cannibalize sales of those phones with their exceptional online price, because the price is anything but exceptional.
So who do they think is going to buy these phones? I know they've pre-sold a lot of these guys already, but besides the hard-core fans they already had, I don't see how they plan on making a dent sales-wise. Unless they don't really care about that. Which leads to my question. What's their goal here?
Google's not selling these phones in retail stores (except Verizon), so they won't get a ton of purchases from people headed to their T-Mobile, AT&T, or Sprint stores who haven't made up their mind what they want before they step into the store. They're not going to cannibalize sales of those phones with their exceptional online price, because the price is anything but exceptional.
So who do they think is going to buy these phones? I know they've pre-sold a lot of these guys already, but besides the hard-core fans they already had, I don't see how they plan on making a dent sales-wise. Unless they don't really care about that. Which leads to my question. What's their goal here?