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Sprint website phone stock?

JohnJSal

Android Expert
Jun 17, 2010
952
72
The website used to say something about "more are on their way," but now it says:

"This device is currently sold out online. Some Sprint Stores do have it and we're regularly receiving more.

Find a Sprint Store near you."

From past experience, does anyone know if this means that the website won't have any for a while, or can we still expect them to get some? It's been more than a month since I've seen them in stock on the website. How long could it possibly take to get a new shipment?
 
I posted this in another tread. This may help explain it. We are an "indirect dealer", not Sprint owned. We have had customer waiting since June and have not received even one EVO to sell. Here are parts of two Sprint emails from early last week 7/19 and 7/20:
---------------------------
HTC EVO Inventory Update
As you are seeing in you stores, demand for the HTC EVO 4G continues to be at unprecedented levels and does not show signs of subsiding. Unfortunately our receipts are not keeping pace with demand. The issue is unrelated to any Sprint actions; HTC cannot produce enough to meet the high demand and this is compounded by a global parts shortage. We expect the remainder of July to be challenging for all channels given the inventory constraints.
At this time we will be unable to open any other channels for distribution than those currently. However, it is our goal to open the remaining channels once inventory position will allow. We are monitoring the health of our inventory and supply chain on a daily basis and will communicate target dates for opening as they become known.

We appreciate how enthusiastic you and your customers are to get the device and how excited you are to offer it to them. Please thank customers for their patience and interest in the EVO, were doing everything we can to get them to customers as quickly as possible.
-----------------------------
Updated EVO "Sold Out Online" Message for Sprint.com
Effective today, Sprint.com will change the EVO out of stock message to:
"This device is currently sold out online. Some Sprint Stores do have it and we're regularly receiving more. Find a Sprint Store near you." There will also be a small banner that reads:

"Sold out online. Check your Sprint Store for availability." The intent is to drive
web customers to stores to purchase the EVO.
------------------------------------
We were trained this week on the Samsung Epic 4G and told to
push it. Sprint and HTC missed a big opportunity to add
subscribers and sell hardware.
 
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I don't get this whole "Global parts shortage" thing. Why is there a shortage? More importantly, why wasn't the shortage anticipated ahead of time by the powers that be? When you see a rock coming, you steer your boat around it. You don't let it go forward and slam into it. There had to be signs of this part shortage thing looming.

Bottom line is that with a new "4G" first of it's kind marketing campaign, they should have known they would need more units for such a launch and should have started stockpiling them sooner. Sounds like a whole lot of mismanagement by a whole lot of people up and down the entire supply chain and a huge segment of the entire industry which is rather astounding. Perhaps they should do advertising and pre-orders farther in advance to gauge supply needs sooner? I don't know. But there has to be better solutions out there then what we have now.
 
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Bottom line is that with a new "4G" first of it's kind marketing campaign, they should have known they would need more units for such a launch and should have started stockpiling them sooner. Sounds like a whole lot of mismanagement by a whole lot of people up and down the entire supply chain and a huge segment of the entire industry which is rather astounding. Perhaps they should do advertising and pre-orders farther in advance to gauge supply needs sooner? I don't know. But there has to be better solutions out there then what we have now.

Given that HTC seems pretty experienced as a world-wide supplier of cell phones of every stripe, I absolutely agree with you and put this at Sprint's doorstep.

I'm not sure how much of this I agree with:

Sprint May Flub Its 4G Lead - WSJ.com
 
Upvote 0
I don't get this whole "Global parts shortage" thing. Why is there a shortage? More importantly, why wasn't the shortage anticipated ahead of time by the powers that be? When you see a rock coming, you steer your boat around it. You don't let it go forward and slam into it. There had to be signs of this part shortage thing looming.

Bottom line is that with a new "4G" first of it's kind marketing campaign, they should have known they would need more units for such a launch and should have started stockpiling them sooner. Sounds like a whole lot of mismanagement by a whole lot of people up and down the entire supply chain and a huge segment of the entire industry which is rather astounding. Perhaps they should do advertising and pre-orders farther in advance to gauge supply needs sooner? I don't know. But there has to be better solutions out there then what we have now.


Let me simplify,
Thats Corporate speak for We Fu*ked Up the Phones are screwed up and we are re engineering them so we have no inventory right now. Once we redesign the stupid thing and we have it properly working it will be back in stock. ;)
 
Upvote 0
I don't get this whole "Global parts shortage" thing. Why is there a shortage? More importantly, why wasn't the shortage anticipated ahead of time by the powers that be? When you see a rock coming, you steer your boat around it. You don't let it go forward and slam into it. There had to be signs of this part shortage thing looming.

Bottom line is that with a new "4G" first of it's kind marketing campaign, they should have known they would need more units for such a launch and should have started stockpiling them sooner. Sounds like a whole lot of mismanagement by a whole lot of people up and down the entire supply chain and a huge segment of the entire industry which is rather astounding. Perhaps they should do advertising and pre-orders farther in advance to gauge supply needs sooner? I don't know. But there has to be better solutions out there then what we have now.
Agreed! Sprint/htc dropped the ball on this one. This should of never been an issue
 
Upvote 0
I don't get this whole "Global parts shortage" thing. Why is there a shortage? More importantly, why wasn't the shortage anticipated ahead of time by the powers that be? When you see a rock coming, you steer your boat around it. You don't let it go forward and slam into it. There had to be signs of this part shortage thing looming.

The two main reasons why the "powers that be" totally underestimated the demand for the Evo are:

1) The current economic recession (or downturn, if you don't believe we're in a recession)

2) Android's historic adoption rate

Point number 1: The blame keeps getting passed around. Sprint blames HTC for the shortage, and HTC blames Samsung for the shortage of screens. Samsung blames the economy; their sales have dropped overall significantly, particularly in the HDTV market, and they had scaled back their manufacturing capability to match the crappy demand. Now they realize that people are buying more smartphones than TVs, so they are scaling up their phone screen manufacturing. But their new assembly plant won't be up and running till 2012. Sucks. During rough times, companies (like everyone else) will be conservative with their cash. They want to avoid having inventory surpluses at all costs.

Point number 2: decisions about how many units to manufacture are made WAY before the public release date. At the time HTC had to make this call, Android adoption was increasing but was hardly a blip on the radar. No one really knew how 4G would affect sales, especially when 4G isn't available in the largest markets of the country. HTC also wasn't about to gamble that Sprint would be able to attract new or switching customers due to one phone. Verizon's "Droid" ad campaigns really kick-started Android, and that momentum definitely made the Evo much more attractive. Most people who have an Evo don't even get 4G signal, and yet people are clamoring for it.

So when you think about it, it's not that hard to see why no one anticipated a shortage.
 
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So when you think about it, it's not that hard to see why no one anticipated a shortage.

But that's a corp exec's job....to anticipate things. Expect the unexpected. And if they decide "WAY before the public release date" then they should take pre-orders sooner to gauge demand. Otherwise, basically you are just guessing. Which isn't a good way to run a business.
 
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Let me simplify,
Thats Corporate speak for We Fu*ked Up the Phones are screwed up and we are re engineering them so we have no inventory right now. Once we redesign the stupid thing and we have it properly working it will be back in stock. ;)

Well that's not the line they gave on the CC.
Dan said, what's happened is the supplies cut back so much during the Economic crisis that they don't have the resources to meet the demand. They didn't see this coming.
 
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