Sprints “First to 4G” plan altered slightly due to delays
If you have heard of the Sprint EVO 4G you will most likely know that they are currently out of stock, almost worldwide. With little inventory showing up in remote locations across the country, one could imagine that this delay in manufacturing has to be effecting Sprints “first to 4G” plan and marketing ploy.
In a recent interview with the Wall St Journal, Dan Hesse the active CEO of Sprint (and yes the guy in the Sprint commercials) is agreeing to the fact that these delays have hurt their overall strategy. The HTC EVO was officially released under the Sprint moniker on June 4th and runs for about two hundred bucks. But seemingly since day one, there has been a shortage of these units. Sprint was the first national carrier to put the 4G label on their marketing material and the mule that was to bring them to the “first to 4G” fame has lost its breath. The CEO of Sprint Dan Hesse was quoted stating “We thought we would have more of a head start than we’ll end up having,” this largely in part of the shortage on the first ever 4G smart phone. The plan was simple, be the first to launch a 4G/3G phone and establish 4G coverage as time went on. Currently Sprint only covers a handful of major cities with their 4G network and quite obviously cannot put this 4G EVO into the hands of their users. While the numbers on units sold for the EVO 4G have yet to be officially stated by Sprint, analysts put the number at around 300,000.
When looking at this from the outside it is clearly evident that the manufacturer of the device simply cannot keep up with the demand. Currently HTC is also in a bit backed up on the Verizon wireless Droid Incredible. HTC is sighting shortages on components that are sourced from various vendors; a main player in these shortages is Samsung who is known for making the screens on HTC phones. The shortage due to demand has launched a 2.2 billion dollar effort from Samsung to build a factory to manufacture these screens, however this project is not expected to be complete until 2012.
The phone that sold Sprints new 4G coverage is currently on back order and as of recently has gone into the gray, as Sprints site references no potential shipping date.
Are you waiting on the new Sprint EVO 4G?
How long have you been waiting?
Sound off below and let Sprint know that there manufacturer has dropped the EVO ball.
Tags: evo 4g delayed, Sprint EVO, Sprint EVO 4G
The evo is an awesome phone. I would rather have the sprint mogul back. The 4g is not reliable coverage. I can play my consoles on the phone but I sometimes get dropped when it’s trying to find 4g. It’s so annoying when I’m playing an online game and I get disconnected. When the 4g is stable it’s awesome. I can use my phone and just do about anything I want. I can have my iPad , laptop,iPod touch, consoles playing online etc xbox,ps3, psp and whatever else running which is a good feeling. Imagine, playing a game online and u move a couple of feet the phone goes to 3G and get disconnected. It’s almost like a dial up connection back in the day. I was having so many problems with the phone when I first brought the phone. I purchased it on the first day of launch. It has since gotten a little better until I received the 2.2 update. The update is nice but it crashes a lot. I can see what Steve jobs(apple) biggest compliant about the flash. I gave up my mifi device, broadband card and cradle point for this. I had no problems with connecting 5 devices with these products. I feel as though the phone was rushed and not tested throughly. Overall the phone is great but with problems. Grade b+
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Well…where do I begin? I’m a Sprint dealer that got an Evo 2 days after it launched, BUT…believe it or not I had to get it on ebay for starters. Now all my customers that have seen my Evo want one (badly), but I can’t sell them one! Some customers are being patient, but others are losing faith (and patience) quickly. In many cases they don’t want to wait at all and they’re getting Blackberries or other devices shortly after scolding us for “advertising” something we can’t sell. Way to go guys! Isn’t life great?
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