T-Mobile may have at least a short-term shortage of its G1 Android-powered phone as customers flood the company with preorders. T-Mobile said it has already sold its presale inventory of the first Google Android phone.
"Given the great anticipation and the heavy presale demand for the T-Mobile G1 with Google, we nearly tripled the number of phones initially available for delivery on our Oct. 22 launch date, and have sold through them all," T-Mobile said.
T-Mobile declined to disclose the number of phones initially available, so analysts can't discern what tripling the number means. However, Strategy Analytics has predicted T-Mobile could sell as many as 400,000 of the G1s this year. What is known is that the devices are now back-ordered until Nov. 10.
Marketing Is the Key
The G1 phone touts touchscreen functionality, a QWERTY keyboard, and a Google-centric mobile Web experience. It was unveiled with iPhone-like hype on Sept. 3. The G1 builds on the promise of the Google mobile operating system, which gives users access to the Android Market. There customers can find and download applications to expand and personalize the HTC-made handset.
All hype aside, the G1's success will boil down to how well the first devices are received in the marketplace and how much effort T-Mobile, Google and HTC put into advertising the phone, according to Michael Gartenberg, vice president of mobile strategy for Jupitermedia.
"Apple spent a lot of time telling people about the iPhone and educating the market," he said. "With a product like the G1, it's going take more for success than just putting the phone out there and seeing if it sells. It takes marketing and evangelizing to drive a new product like this forward."
Priming the G1 Pump
T-Mobile has said Google will work with the wireless carrier on G1 promotion. But just what that means remains as much a mystery as the number of units in the G1 presale. Will T-Mobile launch online, print or TV ads? Will the ads demonstrate the value proposition, show off the features? Or will the messages be more conceptual in nature?
"If T-Mobile markets this right -- and if the units are available -- they could sell as many as 250,000 and 400,000 of these phones before the end of the year," Gartenberg said. "But in order to do that they are going to have to get beyond the early adopters. T-Mobile has to tap into mainstream enthusiasts that might have feature phones now and are looking to get into the higher-end smartphone market."
T-Mobile may have economics on its side in its quest to join the high-end smartphone market, which includes the iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile-based devices. T-Mobile's voice and data  plans offer value relative to some of the plans offered by competing carriers for similar devices.
"There may be combination of factors here that work in T-Mobile's favor: The Google brand, a cool phone, the fact that it's only $25 for unlimited data," Gartenberg said. "All of these things will help T-Mobile. But at the end of the day T-Mobile is going to have to tell a story in order to get adoption."
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