T-Mobile Presold 1.5 Million G1 Android Phones
by
on October 12, 2008,
On September 23 T-Mobile officially presented the first phone powered with Google’s Android mobile operating system. The phone is scheduled to start shipping on October 22 and T-Mobile has invited existing subscribers to preorder the phone right after the presentation to have it delivered when it is available.
Now it looks like arranging for the preorders was exactly the right move as T-Mobile reports on 1.5 million phones already pre-ordered with 10 more days left until the official shipping date. The interesting thing is that this means that T-Mobile has actually managed to sell three times as many phones as it initially ordered from G1 manufacturer HTC - the carrier has already tripled its original request and all those phones are already presold. Actually that is much more than several hundred thousand devices that HTC itself was planning to deliver in 2008.
As Joe Wilcox mentions today on Apple Watch, it is definitely notable that it took Apple 75 days to sell 1 million iPhones for the first device and 3 days for the iPhone 3G. And while the three days may seem impressive, we should keep in mind the simple fact that consumers were already familiar with the device and some were planning the purchase - but refrained from it knowing they should expect the next generation iPhone launched. To the contrary, those people pre-ordering G1 phones from T-Mobile buy them after they merely saw the presentation - following their faith in Google more than anything else.
This is definitely an amazing thing to witness, I think - especially when everyone is so concerned about the recession on hand. Honestly, I did not expect such amazing sales but I guessed we should see some very positive results - simply after I watched tons of comments from very excited reader on my own posts about G1 presentation by T-Mobile, HTC, and Google. Now we get some numeric confirmation to the excitement we’ve seen.
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Svetlana Gladkova
Opensource 
Michael Fidler 
yay!! i want one! anyone want to sponsor me?
Baratunde: Ask someone from Google, they may be willing to get yet another excited customer on board (not sure if they want it for free)
Looks like the G1 launch night will be later this week with a special performance by The Raconteurs in NYC.
Check out http://www.g1phone.blogspot.com for all the latest news.
Not you too Profy … This story’s making its way around the Web with no source. We all know that T-Mobile sold out its initial stock, tripled its order, and sold out … but that doesn’t mean it’s 1.5 million. Fool.com says it is, that’s it.
It seems a bit of an absurd figure to be honest, as only existing customers can buy it. Additionally, there hasn’t been that big of an advertising campaign as far as I can tell. There’s nowhere near the casual buzz as there was for iPhones.
I’m not an Apple fanboy, but I’m just upset to see this get continually perpetuated throughout the tech sites without any attempt at verification. I know the Google juice is good off this story, but come on …
love the site, by the way.
LOL Marin, thank you for the reasonable comment - I have had my doubts as well but I really believed that the number of enthusiastic comments (hundreds of them) on my posts could transform into 1.5m of phones preordered. I can agree with you that the buzz is somewhat more moderate with G1 than it was with iPhone as Apple is really capable to create enormous buzz around all its products with iPhone being the most prominent example. But the main problem here is that I don’t think we’ll get an official comment from T-Mobile on this one as they must be rather pleased with the blogosphere abuzz the 1.5m figure.
Agreed that T-Mobile won’t dispute the figure now, but I really think if they had really sold that much they would have definitely confirmed the number by now. And logistically, I doubt HTC will be able to get 1.5 (plus however many they want to be available on launch day) out the door in those first few weeks.
Marin, absolutely true, this number is something to be very much wiling to confirm as soon as possible - and even announce publicly in a press release at least. And yes, the logistics part does not look like particularly realistic here either with only a few hundred thousand planned to be sold until the end of 2008. I will be sure to take a deeper look into this one and hopefully find some facts in addition to suggestions here. Thank you for guiding me in the right direction (and for the “love the site” comment as well)!
The author of the Motley Fool source article basically told me he guestimated the number:
http://www.informationweek.com/blog/main/archives/2008/10/dont_buy_the_g1.html
It’s just crazy how much momentum these stories can get.
who cares if the numbers is not 1.5 million the google phone is amazing i’m typing from it now and its better than the iphone already.its not really about the numbers its more about the phone itself isuck is finished, people only want the number to prove its a seller what about the programs the tmobile G1 has to offer and is it better than the iphone as far as what u can do. the answer is YES
THANK U