According to a report from The Street, first day sales of Windows Phone 7s reached “a mere” 40,000 units. Multiple reports were quick to point out that this is a far cry from Google’s claims of selling 200,000 units a day, or Apple’s reports of 270,000 unit sales per day, but as The Street points out, Microsoft chose to launch on a Monday, a typical slow sales day for phones, apparently. In contrast, on the weekend of June 28-30, 2007, when Apple released the first iPhone, AT&T reported 125,000 activations of the new phone (or about *ahem* 40,000 units/day x 3). Of course the world of smartphones was vastly different only 3 years ago, and we’re not suggesting that WP7’s 40k first day sales are stellar, by any means.
But as we noticed ourselves yesterday, the phones seemed hard to come by, and who knows how many first day sales were lost because stores were out of stock. Launching just before Christmas may have shoppers waiting a bit until at least Black Friday, or discounts from Amazon.com or other outlets, and wary shoppers may be waiting out early reviews, mindful of another antennagate (pink-castgate? wifigate? sd card syncgate?)
Certainly 40,000 units is a much better start than the reported total sales of 5 to 8,000 units for the ill-fated Kin, and even though The Street and others lamented the $ 100 million in advertising Microsoft has reportedly spent on WP7, they certainly didn’t plan to sell them all in one day. Unlike Kin, Microsoft is (am I really typing this?) “all in” on Windows Phone 7, and while day one sales are an important indicator, we won’t truly know how Windows Phone is faring in the marketplace for weeks if not months.