Mountain View, California — As revealed just two months back, Google said it is gearing up for the closing down of its Nexus One web store. The search engine behemoth Google last week announced that they would soon be pulling shutter on the Nexus One store and would cease selling Nexus Ones to the public, but via wireless carriers and retail partners around the world.
The company said in a statement that appeared on the product website states that the concluding shipments has arrived at Google HQ from its manufacturing partner, Taiwanese-based High Tech Computer Corporation (HTC), and that it would not be selling further units after the final inventory is depleted for U.S. consumers.
“Earlier this year, we announced that we will be closing the Nexus One web store. This week we received our last shipment of Nexus One phones. Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google. Customer support will still be available for current Nexus One customers. And Nexus One will continue to be sold by partners including Vodafone in Europe, KT in Korea, and possibly others based on local market conditions,” a recent post on the company’s Nexus One blog reads.
However, the Nexus One handset will still be marketed through available partners, including Vodafone in Europe and Korea, besides in other already announced regions. Further, Google said it would continue to offer product support for the device.
The Nexus One was heralded as a pioneer in direct to consumer phone sales when it was announced in the beginning of the ongoing year with the purpose of bringing a new purchase model into the wild, but following disappointing sales due largely to the fact that only T-mobile would subsidize it.
This was the company’s first initiative at selling a smartphone directly to consumers, unlocked and ready to be used on any supported carrier without restrictions. Demand for the Nexus One remained marginal, selling about 100,000 units (estimated) in the first month. A special version was built for AT&T but it sold for $600 and wasn’t supported by the carrier.
However, the Nexus One devices are much favored by the geeks, but most American consumers probably just did not realize the concept of an unlocked handset, and Google did not put much marketing muscle behind the device.
Moreover, the company announced that Nexus One devices are available to developers through its Android developer program, because they get Android OS updates first and do not have any carrier skins or applications on them.
Thus, it comes as no surprise that the handset has been stopped and hardly anyone noticed. This is the end of the company’s grand adventure with an unlocked handset.
Nevertheless, Google does take into consideration the information that Nexus One is currently the only mobile phone running under the latest flavor of its Android operating system, namely Android 2.2 Froyo. “To ensure our developers have access to a phone with the latest Android OS, Google will be offering the Nexus One through a partner for sale to registered developers. Visit the Android Market Publisher site and log into your developer account to purchase a Nexus One,” the company announced.
And despite the marginal sales of the Nexus One, Google’s Android operating system is garnering record market share, catching up to the iPhone and the BlackBerry very quickly.
Additionally, with the Android operating system being open source, and can be used by almost any device manufacturer to control their devices. Recently, there has been a greater increased of highly powerful Android powered devices to hit the market, including the Samsung Galaxy S.