Anticlimax
One of the odd things about visiting a huge technology show like CES is that whatever was a big deal one day, seems like old hat a few days later.
When we wrote about the launch of Google's own-branded phone, made by HTC to showcase the best of Android, it looked like Google's decision to enter the phone market and create its own direct sales channel would really shake things up.
That still may eventually be the case, but judging by estimates of the first week's sales from smartphone applications analysts Flurry, things have got off to a slow start.
Flurry used the data it gathers from tracking Android and iPhone applications to come up with an estimate of the first week's sales of the Nexus One and compare them to a couple of other recent Android smartphone launches: the myTouch and the DROID, as well as the iPhone 3G.
As you can see from the table below, the Nexus One doesn't measure-up to well. The iPhone one doesn't really count as it encompasses multiple countries but, for some reason, even other Android phone launches seem to be eclipsing Google's own effort.
Flurry speculates that, with the Nexus One being merely a good Android phone, the lack of ‘wow factor' could be a contributor to the disappointing sales. Also, Google didn't have a great big above-the-line advertising campaign, relying more on hype and viral marketing.
There's also the SIM-free approach. While Google claims to be doing everyone a favour by making them independent of specific phone carriers, the fact still remains that you still need a phone contract. So perhaps the SIM-free option isn't as popular as Google assumed it would be.