The Nokia Lumia 920 Unicorn - Is it real?
It seems worldwide Nokia is having trouble meeting demand for their Nokia Lumia 920--whether it is for AT&T, Rogers or elsewhere, the device is increasingly hard to find. While we do think demand is strong, this is clearly not a case of such intense demand that Nokia can't keep up, rather it appears that Nokia can't produce them fast enough to even fulfill minimal requests by their carrier partners.
Looking at AT&T online and we can verify that cyan, yellow and red are now listed as "out of stock". While some people have received red and cyan, yellow is certainly the unicorn of Lumia 920s with very few, if any, having been shipped to customers--even those who pre-ordered. We've also heard that the online ordering and tracking system is not working well either, requiring users to call for their order status.
Looking at the stores around Long Island, we can see that all stores are listed as "out of stock" for matte black, leaving us only southern Connecticut to pick one up. Glossy white, however, is available from quite a few stores (and is our preferred color anyway). Likewise, you can still order online for glossy white and matte-black, so AT&T corporate still has those in stock.The question is, when will Nokia be able to ramp up production to actually stock store shelves?
Clearly the issue must tie back to production and the difficulties in manufacturing that slick polycarbonate shell and mixing the colors just right. Throw in some possible shortages of key components (silicon, chipsets) and you have the making for a production slowdown. Heck, even HTC has had a tough time getting the 8X onto store shelves in the US.
Nokia Lumia 920 in black...available nowhere
We're reaching out to Nokia for any information about supply but our bet is we'll get the usual PR spin. While some have "theorized" that Nokia is artificially creating demand by forcing a shortage, we think that that's ridiculous. We're positive that Nokia wants nothing more than having their flagship phone on every store shelf awaiting any customer who wants to buy one that day. But for whatever reason, there is a hold up.
Thanks, Noam B., for the tip
