The HTC First was heralded in as the first fully featured Facebook phone, but customers didn’t bite, and now the smartphone is facing the possibility of being discontinued.
Sources close to sales of the HTC device claim that AT&T Wireless has sold less than 15,000 units nationwide. Those sales included AT&T’s special $1 smartphone sale.
According to BGR, the $1 sale was a precursor to total discontinuation of the phone, with salespeople making “little if any effort to sell the handset to customers.”
What’s worse is that HTC paid AT&T to guarantee that the Facebook friendly phone would receive prime positioning at point-of-sale displays throughout AT&T retail stores.
It’s believe AT&T is only keeping the phone in stores now because its contract requires the phones to remain.
In responding to the claims, AT&T says:
“As mentioned previously, we do pricing promotions all the time and have made no decisions on future plans.”
AT&T reps have called the phone “hard to justify” in terms of keeping it on store shelves.
The HTC First has been marred with problems associated with the Facebook Home platform. HTC Home was met with many one and two star ratings. At the time of this post, 47.7 percent of Facebook Home ratings suffer from a one-star placement. The Facebook Home OS as a whole averages just 2.3 stars. In comparison, Facebook’s Android app has a 3.6 rating and Facebook Messenger scores much higher with a 4.4 out of 5 star rating.
HTC use to command a majority of the smartphone market, and now the mobile phone manufacturer is pinning all of its hopes on the well received HTC One. The company’s CEO has promised to step down from his post if the HTC One fails to gain traction and the company’s profits continue to suffer.
Do you think the HTC First was a major misstep for both HTC and Facebook?
