Motorola Milestone becomes eXpansys UK's 'fastest selling gadget'
By Chris Ziegler 
posted December 11th 2009 1:59PM
posted December 11th 2009 1:59PM
Call it a pent-up demand for WVGA Android devices, call it Droid jealousy, call it an unnatural love for the sweet, doughy goodness of a just-baked Eclair -- but whatever it is, early indications suggest that the British love their Milestones. Retailer eXpansys (which is big enough to actually produce some meaningful sales trend data, we suspect) is reporting that the just-launched Droid clone for GSM became "the fastest selling gadget in the website's 11 year history, even more successful than the iPhone" when it sold out inside of three hours on its site on top of the roughly 1,000 preorders they had taken prior to the 10th. This might be a case of double-speak -- we're trying to establish just how many phones were sold during those three hours, because what we really need is a sales rate, not a time span alone -- so we're cautioning Moto not to bust out the champagne glasses just yet, but it's certainly looking like a promising start. Schaumburg hasn't had a lot of success in Western Europe in recent years, of course, but if we can use eXpansys as a barometer here, we'd say that a little cautious optimism is well justified.
@recharged95
Well, firstly, this story makes no mention, or even claim, that it's the best selling device. So I'm not sure where you're getting that from.
But it is the best selling device at the one-and-only place it's available, which is hardly much of an achievement.
It's selling 1000 in the first week, and probably 100 a week until Christmas. And that's probably being generous. Iphone sold 30,000 in a day when it was released on Orange a few weeks ago.
It's all about perspective, kid.
In addition to living up to its 'Milestone' moniker, the Milestone/DROID is simply a fantastic smarphone that offers the kind of performance, technology, and customization options that many of us have sought for years.
Personally, I couldn't be happier with my DROID, and it's great to know that there are so many other that recognize its excellence.
Great Job MotoGoo!
In a way Android is the worst thing to happen to consumer mobile in years. Uh oh the once Pre now Droid trolls will hunt me down. But my point is these major companies can now sit back and reap the glory on the back of the Google Android OS which had nothing to do with them. Android is a Google innovation not a HTC/Motorola innovation, Users should ask themselves without having to produce a OS, what innovations or additions have those companies who are jumping on the free UI bandwagon actually made? How hard was it for Moto to make the Driod? What is so unique about its hardware? Engadget users are so blinded by anti apple hate that they fail to see what is going on here. And they will continue to back the next Android phone, as it is now cool to be anti iPhone. Kudos to the likes of Palm for being brave and attempting to to compete with the iphone.
@(Unverified)
I see what you are saying. But Google as of now is a software company. They are interesting in having many users as possible use their smartphone OS. Kinda like MS with the desktop.
It works imo. Quid Pro Quo.
The Pre is a good phone and could have been a successful phone, but they competed with the iphone following Apple's own strategy. You cant compete with Apple's brand recognition and fan loyality. If they licensed their OS ala Android or were purchased by a large brand like Nokia, only then will they survive.
@(Unverified)
Finally, someone said something useful here... I couldn't agreed more.. the mobile war right now is NOT about who has the best hardware.. its the software that rules... Apple, RIM, Google, Microsoft are the eventual winners...the rest are just followers.. Moto success is the Droid, but the Cliq, and the rest of their portfolio are dragging Droid success down.. at the end of the day, let see how Moto Q4 results will fare..
@(Unverified)
Here here, well said that man
I HATE HOW U CAN NOT VOTE ON COMMENTS USING OPERA INTERNET BROWSER PLEASE FIX ENGADGET
@Atlantian
Yes Engadget please fix this so it works with Opera and also fix the photo uploader for profiles, as it won't work for me on any internet browser.
Is the milestone GSM unlocked?
@pointdexler
yes but you will not get 3g on any U.S. carriers.
Expansys is a reasonably big seller in the UK, but only the geeks know it exists. The general public in the UK haven't a clue what a milestone/droid is. There's no TV ads, nothing in the media at all. It's not being sold anywhere on the high street. The only people who know the milestone exist are engadget/other tech blog readers and Germans and Italians, as they have it on o2. Nobody in the UK knows this exists unless they have hunted it down. I only knew it was at expansys because I've hunted it down on google.
They can't possibly sell in the volumes of the iPhone and won't even come close to matching the Cliq or Hero, because people go to phone shops to buy phones, not a tech website very few people have heard of. Granted they are Europe wide but I've been building PCs and I've been into my gadgets for a while and compared to Amazon, eBuyer, Scan and even dabs they are small fish here.
Feels like motorola aren't really bothered if it sells here at all. Do the maths, say 6 times more people in the US than in the UK? Roughly. I don't know figures exactly. 100,000 droids sold first weekend in the US? 250,000 in a week? Expansys probably have only just touched 1000 and we've been able to order it for nigh on 2 weeks. Not that they're in any hurry to ship them it seems. They're dispatch speed and contract arrangement speed is laughable.
By going with expansys Motorola have basicly said "we don't want to sell the milestone here but there may be a geek or two who would like one, so we'll send a couple". And that's if it's been offered by motorola. I think expansys have had to hound motorola for exclusivity to boost their customer base, even if it would mean selling at a loss. It's just a shame for motorola I think. They could be making a lot of money off this model on this island. Shame they didn't have the foresight to get it marketed.
@cfhuk
I have reason to believe the first batch was 1500 phones (their stock counter jumped to this number before they started to process the pre-orders. Since then Expansys ordered extra stock twice but I think they didn't sell more than 5000 phones tops. But considering most of those are sold carrier free for more than 700 USD, there are not available in and brick and mortar store and there were 0 traditional media advertisements it's not a bad figure.
@(Unverified) I'm not saying its a bad figure, it's great.... just its only great for eXpansys. Just a shame motorola couldn't be bothered to market it more and sell it in a few more places. If they had, they could potentially have had sales proportional to the US, taking into account our island's smaller population. It could well have been over 100,000 units by now. This place is mobile phone nuts after all.
I told a few uber geeky friends today that I was getting this phone. One of the friends programs apps for his iPhone. None of them had ever heard of the milestone or the droid. And these guys all have iPhones and are potential customers.
Put it this way. To compare to the US expansys should have sold(or had ordered) around 80-100,000 milestone handsets by now. It's on a cheaper contract over here at £35, about $55 I think, and the phone only costs £49.99. They have sold about 1000.
People don't know it exists in the UK. People who work in phone shops don't know it exists for Christ sake. I know, I've asked for it, in the carphonewarehouse in Manchester and the T-Mobile shop, the network it's carried on. It's a huge Moto Fail, which is a shame for such a great phone.
Ok, I realized I got totally nuts on this discussion thread. My apologies for the profanities. Its just that trolls really piss me off.
great
I ordered mine from Expansys as well! Just arrived at my place yesterday. :)
Came with a UK power adapter :( though im from holland. Doesnt matter, already loving the phone!!
@B00st3r Still waiting for mine. I'm in the UK and I think everyone here is still waiting despite the release date being the 7th, which they put back to the 11th on the eXpansys website, cheeky devils.
This is clearly the best smartphone out in the UK market. There is one major reason why it will not sell as much as it should. EVERYBODY...EVERYBODY knows that T-Mobile is a terrible network in the UK. Poor reception in buildings, patchy outside. its bloody awful. many people like me are on a network that actually works,(orange), and cant afford to buy the phone outright, and wont switch to bloody t-mobile. Motorola, this is blue screen epic fail.
@soulsurgeon
it sim lock free and motorola didn't choose any operator in the UK (It;s expansys that decided to off an option to bundle it with a t-mobile contract)
@soulsurgeon I've had T-Mobile in the North West for 36 months before getting an iPhone on o2. Although I think T-Mobiles coverage isn't that bad, they're customer service is abysmal compared to o2. When I wanted to upgrade my phone half way into the 36 months with T-Mobile I had to get the guy in the carphonewarehouse to ring them to tell them I was upgrading because they kept putting the phone down on me. Lets hope they have improved since.
It is only with Expansys exclusively for 2 weeks. From 21 December Play.com will also have it and from next year, it should be sold at phone shops from different networks.
I think I'll wait for it to be sold by T-Mobile on their website so I could get a better deal and cashback.
I'll order mine the moment it will be available in Denmark, if I am happy of my Hero I think I'll even happier of my future Milestone.
I was one of those that bought the device from Expansys - I got one of the first batch, and I'm loving the device (though there's been some niggles related to the Android Market with carrier-unlocked devices)...
I have to agree that the whole marketing of the device over here has been really, really weak... no carrier, no publicity, and even where you *do* find any info, the branding of Milestone, compared to Droid... is lame. Not gonna get anyone excited at those Milestone adverts. They could do so much more with this device.
@grellanl I thoroughly agree with you. Are you in the UK and have your handset already? I think getting the contracts sorted is holding the dispatch of some up. On the tracking page its said mine was in stock all day friday, despite the availability being 5 days on the phones sale page. It hasn't updated to being dispatched yet though.
@cfhuk : Same situ here cfhuk and I am more than a little annoyed at this now - they have also run out of T-mobile sim cards and are now claiming 4 days until they have stock of these (yeah, right).
No response from Expansys to emails querying the situation, no apologies from them for the delays. Yup, its obviously popular, they obviously didn't staff up to handle the volume properly but when we're talking about pre-Christmas orders messing customers about is going to cause a lot of bad will.
Glad to hear that someone has their phone and is happy with ti though :)
@cfhuk (struggling to reply on engadget for some reason)... yep, I got it last Friday, I had an early contract-free preorder in. I think the delays/contract problems are down to this being a bundled deal that Expansys are doing on the phone, rather than being T-Mo's own promotion. It's a shame Moto and Google aren't doing more to make the experience good for new buyers... I mean, despite the recent stories in the press about Android's popularity in Europe generally, it's clear that there's plenty of demand!
PS new Milestone buyers are finding initially, that they can't download copy-protected apps from the Android Market... this seems to be a known issue and nobody's willing to tell us how whitelisting works, but it fixes itself after a day or two!
What happened to your editorial guidelines about text case in names? Or do you think calling it Expansys would confuse a significant number of readers?