I’d reported earlier that the ROKR wasn’t selling well, and alongside all the other bad press it’s been getting comes a pretty damning report from an analyst.
Albert Lin of American Technology says in a Bloomberg article that customers are returning the ROKR at six time the normal rate for mobile handsets, and that there are “compatibility bugs” between the iTunes computer software and the phone.
MotoCEO Ed ZNDR is getting a little more realistic about the device, too: “People were looking for an iPod and that’s not what it is. We may have missed the marketing message there.” He says the company didn’t make it clear enough that the ROKR only holds 100 songs. Of course, had they done that, even fewer people probably would have bought it. Motorola sold an average of 83,000 ROKRs per week when it was on sale last quarter — that’s shipments to carriers, not end-user purchases, which are probably much lower — compared to 500,000 per week for its iconic RAZR device.
With Apple focusing on Nano and video iPod product releases, and Motorola nearing its iRadio music service launch, you have to wonder how much attention was given the Rokr during development… The somewhat buggy Rokr is uncharacteristic of the two, normally design-worthy, companies. It’s a shame, considering all the hype that surrounded the Rokr.
-M
http://www.iRadioWaves.com