Essential sold fewer than 90,000 smartphones during its first six months

[Shawn Knight]

Andy Rubin’s Essential Products managed to generate a decent amount of excitement over its first flagship smartphone. Unfortunately, the company’s freshman effort came up short in a number of key categories including sales.

According to IDC research director Francisco Jeronimo, only 88,000 Essential Phones shipped in 2017 following the phone’s late August launch. While nobody was really expecting Rubin and company to go toe-to-toe with heavyweights like Apple or Samsung, one can’t help but think that less than 90,000 units shipped is a bit of a disappointment.

For comparison, Apple sold 77.3 million iPhones during its most recent three-month period while Samsung moved 74.1 million phones.

Essential would likely prefer to put 2017 in the history books. After multiple delays, the Essential Phone shipped on August 25, 2017. Shortly after, some Essential customers that pre-ordered the device were hit by a targeted phishing campaign. Within just a few months of launch, Essential shaved $200 off the cost of its flagship.

Various other issues continued to plague the company but it was Rubin’s sudden leave of absence following reports of an inappropriate relationship while at Google that was the most damning.

It’s unclear how Rubin’s leave of absence will impact the company’s road map. Is Essential ready to try its luck with a second-generation device or would the company be best served by borrowing a page from Amazon’s playbook and ditching the phone idea entirely?

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https://www.techspot.com/news/73251-essential-sold-fewer-than-90000-smartphones-during-first.html

 

[p51d007]

Other than tech bloggers, hard core geeks, this was an "unknown" startup, and they priced it
WAY too high. Should have sold it for cost, or a little over, and might have sold a few more.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Called it. To obscure, too many implementation problems, and no headphone jack.

 

[Evernessince]

Other than tech bloggers, hard core geeks, this was an "unknown" startup, and they priced it
WAY too high. Should have sold it for cost, or a little over, and might have sold a few more.

Heck, they would have sold allot more. You know they had good margins when they shave $200 off the price so quickly. Really bad idea for a new company in such a competitive market to price their product so high.

 

[JaredTheDragon]

Nobody who saw this guy's photo bought this phone, ever. Nothing screams fake-nerd like some douche in glasses posing terribly on a gradient background. At least Musk and Jobs and that ***** Zucky take the time to Photoshop the dork out of their photos first, or Photoshop their fake wives in.

 

[dj2017]

Someone tried to become the new Apple overnight and failed because he was offering nothing new in the market. Nothing strange really. Andy Rubin should have tried to copy Xiaomi here, not Apple. Greed can ruin someone's chance to start something new and starting with something expensive, with the hope to became the next Apple, was a very risky, very greedy and in the end, a very bad idea. When Apple started, it was offering something new, with top quality marketing all over it, in a market that was just starting. 90000 smartphones in today's market, is way better than what I was expecting to be honest.

 

[Alex Voinica]

Dead on arrival.

 

[m-tec]

Shipped 90,000 units is not the same as sold 90,000 units. I'd like to know how few actually SOLD.
Hardly a surprise, except to everyone at Essential of course, gotta love corporate greed!

 

[Puiu]

Excitement? I never heard of them until now

 

[Joe Blow]

Where do the old phones end up?