![Screen shot 2009-12-11 at [ December 11 ] 12.05.23 PM](http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Screen-shot-2009-12-11-at-December-11-12.05.23-PM-275x300.png "Screen shot 2009-12-11 at [ December 11 ] 12.05.23 PM")
After more than a month of listening to their U.S brethren blab about how great the Droid is, folks in the UK finally got the chance to nab its European-doppelganger, the Milestone. Well, for about 3 hours anyway.
eXpansys, reigning handset online retailer kings of the UK, managed to lock in an exclusive distribution deal on the launch of the Milestone. They opened up sales yesterday morning – and within 2.5 hours, their stock was depleted.
In a comment from eXpansys sent to Pocket-lint:
“The demand for the Motorola Milestone has been staggering. We received the units at 10am on Thursday, 2.5 hours later we had sold out. A second shipment is already on the way and should be arriving in time for Christmas orders”.
While that’s certainly impressive, it’s not at all clear just how many phones were sold. They had a pre-order supply of about 1,000 handsets, which they later doubled to meet demand. Retailers will often match or double their pre-order sales for on-site inventory – so even if we’re lenient with the numbers, we very well could be talking about a total inventory of 5 to 6 thousand handsets. If thats the case, selling out in 3 hours doesn’t seem all that incredible – especially considering that eXpansys was the only retailer that could sell the handset in the UK at launch. If anything, it’s just bad planning on Moto’s part.
Either way, it appears the handsets are back in stock, if only temporarily. Get’em while they’re hot, UK-folk.
[Via Engadget]
Don’t look now, but they’re sold out again. Now showing a 5 day shipping estimate. There are a lot of pissed off people on their message board. Perhaps this is indicative of another scenario? Could Moto actually be struggling to meet worldwide demand now? I read elsewhere that it has also been a big seller on O2.
getclicky is showing that Droid has already achieved a 5% mobile internet market share. That’s huge for only one month of availability and almost a third of total RIM mobile internet market share.
http://getclicky.com/marketshare/us/droid/
Incidentally, developers seem to be really stepping up on app development for Android. While the media keeps regurgitating 10,000 apps, it’s actually closer to 20,000 now; having doubled in just 3 months.
Contrary to a lot of opinions, it’s still good that at least finally moto-droid unveiled their droid version ‘milestone’ to UK. Europeans had been waiting this for 2 months now. But why? here’s the leaked specs: http://bit.ly/motorola-milestone-best
Also Test Drive Android OS 2.0 on Windows.
http://www.zjtechlive.com/try-android-2-0-on-your-windows/
yes. Motorola milestone looks nice. im loocking forward to india also.
Why in India dude? Its so frustrating no 3G yet in India. Let the other countries have a go at it.
Android army helps bury the iPhone
Yea!! Surely expected for what is rated as the best Smartphone of the year 2009.