Revising their previous target of 600,000 HTC G1s shipped by the end of 2008, HTC CEO Peter Chou has disclosed that the company now expects to ship at least 1 million of the world’s first Android handset by year’s end.
Of course, these numbers may seem a bit low if you’re still going on the false idea that pre-orders alone reached 1.5 million, a count which blazed across the internet as a result of some faulty calculations in a Motley Fool story.
While it’s not quite as mind-boggling as the 1 million iPhone 3Gs Apple sold in just 3 days after launch, pushing one million handsets in 2 1/2 months is no small feat. According to a comment made by Steve Jobs in July, the original iPhone broke the 1 million mark in 74 days, which also works out to just about 2 1/2 months. By units shipped, the first Android phone is looking to be as much of a success as the first Apple phone.
So why might HTC be seeing an increase in orders? Traditional factors (like marketing) aside, I’d imagine that much of the success stems from worth-of-mouth triggered by Android Market applications. When a handset does something cool, owners show it off; the easier it is to add more cool stuff to the device, the more likely it is that people will be saying “Hey! Check this out.” As more intriguing applications make their way to the market, demand for Android handsets will go up as a result.
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