AT&T discontinues the HTC First, Officially a Flop

[Bateluer]

http://bgr.com/2013/05/13/htc-first-discontinued-att-facebook-phone/

Our source at AT&T has confirmed that the HTC First, which is the first smartphone to ship with Facebook Home pre-installed, will soon be discontinued and unsold inventory will be returned to HTC. How much unsold inventory is there? We don’t have an exact figure, but things aren’t looking good. According to our source, AT&T sold fewer than 15,000 units nationwide through last week when the phone’s price was slashed to $0.99.

For some perspective, BGR has been informed that sales of the HTC First have been even worse than HTC Chacha sales were back in 2011, when AT&T launched the ill-fated phone as the Status.

I am shocked, I tell you. Absolutely shocked.

 

[Ravynmagi]

I just started a thread about this too. So I'll just copy and paste my thoughts here (and ask the other thread to be closed)...



Word is the HTC First is getting discontinued due to poor sales by AT&T. And this makes me want to ask the question. Why do mid range phones even exist on contract plans?

This phone, the HTC First at full price is $350. And on a contract it is $100.
The Android flagship Samsung Galaxy S4 is $650 and on contract $200.
Despite a $300 price difference between these phones, their contract prices are only $100 difference. And if someone is patient you can often find these flagship phones almost free with a contract.

The story says AT&T eventually lowered the HTC First price to $1 on contract. But it still isn't getting quite as big of a discount that the flagship phones get.

Seems like HTC should have taken this phone to T-Mobile instead.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I just started a thread about this too. So I'll just copy and paste my thoughts here (and ask the other thread to be closed)...



Word is the HTC First is getting discontinued due to poor sales by AT&T. And this makes me want to ask the question. Why do mid range phones even exist on contract plans?

This phone, the HTC First at full price is $350. And on a contract it is $100.
The Android flagship Samsung Galaxy S4 is $650 and on contract $200.
Despite a $300 price difference between these phones, their contract prices are only $100 difference. And if someone is patient you can often find these flagship phones almost free with a contract.

The story says AT&T eventually lowered the HTC First price to $1 on contract. But it still isn't getting quite as big of a discount that the flagship phones get.

Seems like HTC should have taken this phone to T-Mobile instead.

So the issue is how do you price mid range phones? Contract pricing screws everyone over. If a $200 flagship can go for $100 during sales like Black Friday or other major sales, then how do you price any other phone? There really isn't room for mid range and high range phones to exist, especially if the mid range phone is a new phone. I can bet you all the other Samsung and HTC mid range phones sell like crap. The better strategy is to utilize Apple's strategy of selling last year's flagship as the new midrange.

I think it tends to work better with US consumers who shop based on popularity.

 

[Oyeve]

This was a fail before launch if you ask me. I feel for the unfortunate 5 people who got this phone.

 

[Bman123]

Fewer then 15,000 units, I'm surprised anyone bought this phone. The idea was just terrible and the phone itself was nothing to write home about. Take that HTC, you were dumb enough to do this, did they really think this would help their sales when the HTC One just came out?

 

[s44]

You think this will turn up cheap unlocked on a deals site?

 

[Jinny]

the hardware is not bad actually, 4.3" 720p screen. you dont see too many of those.

 

[zerogear]

Now I'm wondering, is HTC responsible for the loss, or is Facebook? I would assume Facebook was the one contracting the phone from HTC.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Now I'm wondering, is HTC responsible for the loss, or is Facebook? I would assume Facebook was the one contracting the phone from HTC.

I'm not sure HTC loses that much. I think a lot of it was a push from Facebook, and I'm sure they paid a bunch of money into this. I think HTC knows better than to do stupid launches. This was a US only launch and not a worldwide thing. We are the country of idiotic exclusive short-lived fancy phones that live on one carrier for only a short period. The only time this kind of exclusivity worked well was the iPhone.

 

[poofyhairguy]

the hardware is not bad actually, 4.3" 720p screen. you dont see too many of those.

Yeah if the bootloader can be unlocked this could be the Touchpad for off-contract phones.


So basically Facebook fails on mobile yet again. It is amazing how hard it is for them to leverage their power on mobile.

 

[Bateluer]

The only time this kind of exclusivity worked well was the iPhone.

And it became a liability after 2 years. Had Apple and AT&T kept the iPhone exclusive to themselves, Apple wouldn't even be a player in the mobile world today.

 

[ibex333]

http://bgr.com/2013/05/13/htc-first-discontinued-att-facebook-phone/



I am shocked, I tell you. Absolutely shocked.

ROFL. I knew it! It was a very dumb idea to begin with. I mean... there are many stupid people a little too obsessed with Facebook, but not THAT many stupid people obsessed with Facebook! ; )

Will be on the lookout in case those turn up cheap somewhere. Hopefully they can be rooted, and with CM installed, might be half descent.

 

[dagamer34]

Sigh:

UPDATE: After initially declining to comment, AT&T contacted BGR via email with the following brief statement:

As mentioned previously, we do pricing promotions all the time and have made no decisions on future plans.

BGR and its hunt for pageviews.

Looking at it logically, there is NO way the hardware in the HTC First at $99 is worth as much as the Lumia 920 at $99 on contract. So yeah... What it actually demonstrates is that smartphone pricing to begin with is bonkers.

 

[Oyeve]

Bah, HTC probably made millions on this deal with FB. I dont think HTC cares one bit as the phone was probably made with surplus parts and FB just loses some face (pun?). The only real losers are the saps who bought this product.

 

[Mopetar]

Not really sure what they were expecting.

There are ~134 million smart phone users in the U.S. For ease of analysis lets just assume that 120 million are on 2-year contracts. If the contract dates are evenly distributed, in any given month there are 5 million people eligible to get a new phone. There isn't a whole lot of mobility between carriers and AT&T only has 30% of the market, so a reasonable maximum potential customer base is 1.5 million for the first month, but that assumes that everyone eligible to buy one will. AT&T also has a disproportionately higher number of iOS users, and assuming that most tend to stick with iOS, this phone is only really competing with other Android phones. So that leaves 500,000 potential sales. Then you need to further factor in the number of people who will only get a free phone when they renew their contract. I have no idea % of people that is, but let's just say that leaves about 300,000 potential customers. Then there's probably at least another 200,000 out of those who want a flagship device.

So really the potential customer base for this during the first month is probably about 100,000 people. I'm not sure what they were expecting in terms of sales, but anything over 50,000 in the first month would aiming far too high.

 

[WelshBloke]

... basically Facebook fails on mobile yet again. It is amazing how hard it is for them to leverage their power on mobile.

I wouldn't say that Facebook fails in the mobile area, pulling a figure from my arse I'd guess that their app is installed on 80% of smartphones.

The problem was that there was really no point in that phone when every smartphone is already a Facebook phone.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I wouldn't say that Facebook fails in the mobile area, pulling a figure from my arse I'd guess that their app is installed on 80% of smartphones.

The problem for Facebook is a lack of monetization for that mobile app. Right now most of Facebook's big money makers (like the gaming, and most of the desktop sites's ads) are not available for mobile. You simply can't shove that many ads on a 5 inch screen.

So as more and more users switch to mobile devices for social networking, they have to find new ways of making money on mobile. The plan with Facebook home was to create a level of buy-in so Facebook could use the whole device for an advertising platform rather than just one app. The First flop is a huge setback for them.

Not that I care personally. Actually I wish they would have spent the home development resources on a better Android tablet app.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Not that I care personally. Actually I wish they would have spent the home development resources on a better Android tablet app.

Over under on Facebook app tablet version by end of 2013?

 

[ChronoReverse]

They insert adds in the app now so they're probably getting some money from that. Probably lots of click-throughs too since it pretends to be regular posts enticing the average user to click.

 

[Imported]

They insert adds in the app now so they're probably getting some money from that. Probably lots of click-throughs too since it pretends to be regular posts enticing the average user to click.

These annoy me. I used to be able to mark them as spam.. no longer.

 

[Eruditass]

You'd think they'd learn the ChaCha and Salsa.

 

[dagamer34]

Over under on Facebook app tablet version by end of 2013?

They've already said Facebook Home is coming to Android tablets later this year, I assume this means they are making a proper tablet app.

 

[Bateluer]

They insert adds in the app now so they're probably getting some money from that. Probably lots of click-throughs too since it pretends to be regular posts enticing the average user to click.

This. I've been noticing more and more of those popping up in my mobile feed. Irritating more than anything, tho occasionally an interesting ad for an Android game pops up. Then I find out its another Freemium crapware game after looking at the Play Store.

 

[zerocool84]

You'd think they'd learn the ChaCha and Salsa.

Those were just a basic Facebook button and some automatic uploads to Facebook, the First was more but you could get the same experience on other phones so no one cared.

 

[Crono]

You think this will turn up cheap unlocked on a deals site?

One can hope. It's a decent phone if you turn off Home.

On contract I wouldn't have bothered to buy the Home, not when the One was out at the same time. Being an ATT exclusive was also a mistake for Facebook, you would think they would want the phone in as many hands as possible.