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Search giant Google’s experiment in smartphone retailing is officially over. Some six months after the company launched its first superphone (as Google called it), HTC-designed Nexus One, it has stopped selling the devices through its online store.
“Sorry, folks…The Nexus One is no longer available for purchase directly from Google,” the company announced on its site.
Google had warned users a month back about its plan to shut down the Web store. Google has promised that it will make the device available to ‘registered developers’ through a partner.
The company acknowledged that its Nexus One retailing model failed to catch on with customers.
“While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not,” wrote Andy Rubin, vice-president of engineering at Google in a blog post in May. “It’s remained a niche channel for early adopters.”
Google has refused to give any figure to the number of phones it sold during its brief stint as a phone retailer.
The company welcomed year 2010 by launching its own smartphone Nexus One in January and selling it directly through its Web store.
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