Sprint Nextel Corp. (NYSE: S) got a little too excited over its Friday launch of the EVO 4G smartphone. Maybe it was an attempt to steal even more thunder from Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), which announced its own 4G iPhone on Monday. Sprint originally reported that it had sold three times the number of EVOs on launch day as it had sold Samsung Instinct and Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) Pre phones in the first three days of sales of those two phones combined.
Oops. In fact Sprint sold an equal number of EVO phones on launch as the first three days of sales for the Instinct and Pre phones. That’s a difference of minus two-thirds from the original report. Sprint said they “inadvertently erred in the comparison.”
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Embarrassment aside, Sprint’s EVO device, made by Taiwan’s HTC Corp., has been selling well for the company and is said to be sold out at some stores and heading toward short supplies at others. Even though Sprint is delighted with the response to the phone, it clearly failed to anticipate demand correctly.
The same supply problems hit Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) and Deutsche Telekom (NYSE: DT) when that company launched its HTC Incredible smartphone, which uses the Android operating system by Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG).
It seems like Sprint (and Verizon Wireless) could have believed in their own hype a little more and manufactured enough phones to exceed slightly their own sales estimates. So what if they end up with a few thousand or so in inventory. Meeting strong demand in a crowded market gives customers a good feeling that is more than equal payback for carrying the extra inventory.
Only Apple can get away with selling out of new products right away because that’s what everyone expects to happen. If Apple didn’t face supply problems the buzz would be that the new product was a failure.
Because Sprint doesn’t report any real numbers, sales estimates for the EVO are just guesses. One analyst has pegged the phone’s first weekend sales at 150,000 units. The total depends on the first weekend sales figures for Instinct and Pre phones, and Sprint never disclosed those numbers either.
Sprint’s shares are up more than 4% so far today after falling for the past two days following the announcement of Apple’s iPhone 4.
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