AT&T no longer able to order Lumia 920's from Nokia

[VisceralMonkey]

Completely anecdotal, but here's my experience with the whole supply/demand thing here in the US.

A week ago, on black Friday, I took advantage of the Walmart Lumia 920 deal. It's $69 for the phone with 2 year contract and you get a $100 Walmart gift card, so they essentially paid me $31 to get the phone and sign up for 2 years.

A deal I'll take.

Now, Walmart is just an AT&T re-seller, so once the phone arrives, I'm a normal AT&T customer. They get all their stock directly from AT&T when they have inventory come in.

I've spoken with Walmart Wireless twice this week and know for a fact the phone is back ordered, any stock they receive is already spoken for (like my order). They received an order Thursday for an unspecified number of units already sold and mine was *not* in that order. I called again today and a shipment of 327 units arrives Monday, mine being # 291 so I'll finally be getting my phone. If you make the *assumption* that the previous order Walmart got in this week was roughly the same number of units, you get a ballpark figure of how many units just an AT&T reseller is pushing in one week, all already spoken for. Of course, they might have gotten more than that one shipment this week, I have no way of knowing. Those are *some* numbers, and what you do with them is up to you.

As for the popularity of the phone itself, I can say this: I'm not a huge phone-a-phile. I have a crappy Android phone from a while back and I've just not been impressed by it at all. I don't feel the need to cruise the app store and don't spent a ton of money on apps themselves. My wife has the latest iPhone and I had every intention of getting one of those but liked what I saw so much with the Lumia 920 I decided to forgo the iPhone and go this route. Now, I *do* know several people who are phone freaks (as in they have multiple android and iPhones, usually for business, etc) and those thats have tried out the Lumia 920 are pretty impressed by it, even die-hard iPhone fans.

In the end, it's all just so much random numbers, but the *feeling* I get, and it's just that, is that the phone itself is drawing attention from lots of different kinds of phone users and that there might be a legitimate surge of interest here, not just short supply. Take with salt, etc, etc..

 

[robstunner]

On AT&T website, 920 color out of stock is black. Rep said the red color is not selling.

I just got a red lumia 920 yesterday and the rep said it was one of only 2 the received. I was also told that the yellow and cyan were so popular that you cannot even order one due to the demand. White and black were in abundance he said. Online, premier att showed an availability of white and black I believe.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2

 

[willied]

I think that part of the shortage is related to the shutting down of the factory in Finland, as Coreldan was saying, and due to the demand in other parts of the world.

I'm assuming most people here are American, correct me if I'm wrong, and as such, we have an Americentric POV. The US is hardly a large market compared to other parts of the world, and we certainly don't have the growth of other emerging economies. It makes more sense for them to establish their brand, and grab marketshare, in India, China, and Europe as a whole.

So, I might expect Nokia to route a majority of their production towards the other markets, and let the US market buy whatever is available. That might sound unfair to some of you, but it's just the economics of the matter. Even if you say that the average person in India or China can't afford a 920, the average person in Europe certainly can. And even if they are in a recession, Americans seemed to have no problems buying iPhones, so what's stopping a European from buying a 920?

According to the 2011 census, Europe has a population of 739,165,030. The US has 311,591,917 people, that's half the number of Europe. India? 1,241,491,960 people. That's 4 times the size of the US. China? 1,344,130,000 people. That's a combined 8 times more than the US.

Comscore has guessed that there is a smartphone penetration of 47% in the US. So that leaves half of the market for easy sales, being optimistic of course. India's penetration? 2.5%. China apparently has a 33% penetration rate (I don't know how reliable that figure is..). That's a lot more potential customers in those markets.

My exact numbers may be off, but the concept holds true regardless. I don't know, I could be completely wrong, but it seems reasonable to me. It also seems like a smart move. I don't know about China, but Nokia has a strong brand presence in India. Their Asha phones are doing really well there. Also, hopefully, their new plant in Vietnam becomes operational earlier in 2013 than later. They said it would be open in early 2013. I say that window gives them anywhere from January to May. January would be amazing, but I think March is more realistic.

You also have to factor in demographics. A much higher percentage of Americans are going to buy a smartphone versus say people in India. Obviously there is huge growth potential in these countries, but it's not as cut and dry as one might expect.

 

[knitoe]

I was also told that the yellow and cyan were so popular that you cannot even order one due to the demand.

I have battery issues with my preordered Cyan 920 and I got a replacement ordered by a supervisor under the 14 day remorse policy. I was told that the replacement would be backordered with no estimation on how long it would be until it shipped to me.

The order was placed on 11/26/12 and it finally shipped yesterday 12/03/12. A week wasn't too long for me to wait as I already had my problematic phone to tide me over, but I could understand for a person with a new order having to wait a week could be an awful long time. I could see why AT&T would want to stop orders until they can provide an adequate lead time for new orders.

 

[tissotti]

Better for Nokia than having more stock than they can move. They gambled with supply levels and took the better option as a struggling company. Having moderate inventory and selling out because people love the product is WAY better than having huge inventory and selling little of it because people don't want your product. This will be temporary and likely never happen again.

Actually there is supposedly shortage of the MSM8960 SoC's. What has resulted Nokia to also delay Lumia 820 globally and put all of the supplies toward Lumia 920.

You also have to factor in demographics. A much higher percentage of Americans are going to buy a smartphone versus say people in India. Obviously there is huge growth potential in these countries, but it's not as cut and dry as one might expect.

True, though China is world largest smartphone market and released the phone this month there with China Mobile that has 650 million customers and it's actually the country where most of the money for Samsung and Nokia comes from.
Europe naturally has since the dawn of days been the market for Nokia.

It's not that the US market is the largest it's just that it's very influential in smartphone realm and is why you want to do well in the US.

That's very much true. The hot spot and the largest smartphone market was centered around North Europe back in 1999-2008 as the home of GSM by Nokia and Ericsson, but after Android and Apple it has shifted to North America. Now it seems like China is clearly the market where you need to be.... and the cycle continues.

 

[amiashu]

it is really crazy that at&t would not even allow me to reserve the cyan one. they see a notification in their system that effective nov 21st, they cant place orders for it. i had to order it from best buy for $99 without the free charger. bestbuy doesn't say that the phone is back-ordered and expected to arrive next week. i am not sure i trust them though. i missed out on the thanksgiving sale because i was only eligible for upgrade from Dec 1st.
But i am happy to see such high demand though i do believe the supply was also limited

 

[Sorenji]

i'm so glad you got yours so fast I've been waiting a little over a month now for my cyan 920. with no sign of an update on if it's been shipped. though for some odd reason i received my charging pad before the phone showed up and that was 2 weeks ago. something has to be up with shipments.