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Remember the 66,483 HTC EVO 4G handsets Sprint stores sold over the two days following the phone’s release? If not, that’s probably because the sales figure leaked by a Sprint employee on the XDA-Developer forums didn’t get too much air time between the released and retracted “record” sales figures reported. Even though the figure didn’t make too huge of a splash, Sprint followed up the leak with an internal investigation that has resulted in the termination of the employee in question.
Sprint’s “Forensics” team traced the offender back to a Florida area store, sending a member of the task force all the way from Kansas to handle the matter personally. After chastising the employee for their loose-lipped online habits the perpetrator was sent packing.
Is it all part of a larger conspiracy to skew the sales number for the EVO 4G? Probably not, though Sprint obviously was not happy with the figure being reported (granted the number presumably only includes Sprint retail stores and excludes outlets like Best Buy and RadioShack).
[via MobileCrunch]
Maybe it wasn’t high enough for them :p
I can understand why Sprint would do this, and by the way very stupid of the employee. Leaked information is becoming more of a problem for various entities. This 66k figure to me seems very light, and i cannot see how that type of volume could lock up there company system. Having worked at one of the mentioned retailers that wouldn’t be enough units for that company to even decided to carry a major product at launch. Any way at least try not to use the company computers to make posts, sure seems like they found the guy fast.
66k sounds like day 1 sales. Pretty believable for one day numbers.
going aloing with what jjfizzil said, there have been a lot of issues with the EVO and it’s touch screen (to be expected from anything that is morbidly obese). Maybe Sprint is nervous that their flagship android device just didn’t live up to the hype…
Sprint is just upset that they didnt sell half as many evos, as verizon sold on the incredibles, and so they are taking out on this poor employee, whats the big deal about how many evos were sold…
There’s nothing “Forensic” about asking XDA to drop the bomb on the account in question. This guy was just retarded, used a company computer and probably registered legitimate info with XDA or something identifying.
Sixty-six thousand over two-days is not bad considering they are not considering Radio Shack and probably the largest mover of all, Best Buy. If you add those two in alone, I would at least double that number.
If this dude lost his job just for posting sales numbers, then what in the hell is going to happen to that poor guy who left that nice IPHONE 4 in the bar????
Damn Apple is going to press charges against there employee. lol
I wonder if the $10 extra charge has anything to do with it. I know when I got my EVO 3 people that pre ordered theirs ended up not getting it because of that. They said what we all kind think. “If I can’t get 4G speeds yet…. Why do I have to pay”. Just a thought.
1) this is only for sprint retail stores, not others.
2) they STILL ran out of phones are still in short supply..so the ‘low’ sales numbers are due to not having enough. Im sure it wouldve been larger if the supply was.
@ShaunD, there’s a big difference between someone who was careless with something he was authorized to have, and someone releasing information tbey were not authorized to release. Someody gets some info these days and can’t resist trying to look important by sharing it. When it happens, people lose their jobs. The learning curve seems pretty steep, apparently.
I could see why they fired the guy. Low sales figures could have a materially adverse effect on Sprint’s stock. Same reason BP is tight lipped about the spill, it’s not helping BP much though. The weird part about this is, well if you wanted a really high sell through #, why didn’t you order enough phones? This is doesn’t make any sense. But there are still shortages of the phone. Boggles the mind. Regardless, it’s still a awesome phone.
Fired? Terminated? How was the leak damaging to the company? Interesting… Where was the information listed and was it marked private or not for distribution? Was it from an internal memo? In any case, it’s just a good example of using a FIREWALL/PROXY server when posting ANYTHING to the net you might be concerned about trace-back! Lol… :)
People should stop bringing up the $10 extra fee because Sprint is already OVER $10 LESS than competitors data/voice plans. AT least Spring will be getting higher end phones now like the Samsung Galaxy S /S Pro etc.
No one seems to get the entire story straight, the fired employee was using numbers based on his estimate. Those are not the true numbers. Not to mention those numbers do not include Online, Telesales, Bestbuy, RS and Walmart sales. Only Sprint corporate stores.
The Evo is yet another epic failure for Sprint !!! That company can’t do anything right !!!!
Speaking from being a former sprint employee, they treat their employees like garbage! The guy in the long run is better off and when it comes down to It if insider trading didn’t exist, we would all know sprint is pretty much done. Over the last several months they motivate by fear, lie and chip away reps commissions. Not to mention they also rig their customer satisfaction ratings. Promise employees raises, but know they have them by the balls because of the bad economy! Yeah SPrint sucks!
I love my Sprint evo! I can’t believe I ever used anything other than that beautiful HTC android device! I was tired of watching ATT kiss Jobs’ ass so he could bring out the next iPhone.
Good luck ATT sheep!
Sprint is managed by incompetent boobs, WHERE are the ADS?
The publics memory is short and the EVO 4G will fade unless ads appear regularly.
Sprint head of marketing – fire him
Sprint head of product development – fire him.
Sounds about right to me. Why wouldn’t the Sprint figures be that low? Everyone else most likely bought the Evo from BB or RS because it was a $100 cheaper and had a warranty option. I got mine at RS and had to do a manual contract because the sprint activation server would crash every time I was halfway through the process. I was in RS for 6 hours! They are lucky I’m satisfied with the phone that much to forget about the agony i suffered from waiting.
Wow, so Sprint sold about 3 EVOs per store. Awesome. The funny thing is that HTC knows for a fact that they would have sold way more with Verizon’s Droid branding.
With mediocre sales figures for Sprint, which carrier do you think HTC will break out the big guns for next time?
Sprint fanboys can continue talking about their discount service, but the fact remains that I can either pay Sprint $99.99 for EVERYTHING (half of which I don’t need), or continue paying Verizon $109.98/month for what I need (with some buffer room). Let’s see, $9.98 to go from the lowest rated carrier in the Southeast to the highest…hmmmm???
Sprint’s days continue to be numbered.
I thought he was caned for leaking the number! Is he in Singapore?
Omg folks come to grips and comment on the story. This has nothing to do with service prices, fees, or networks. This is about a dumb employee who was fired for doing a dumb thing. If you work for a company it is illegal to release material information, check out any legal case argued on the subject in the US. There is no one perfect carrier out there. Sprint still has marketing and customer service issues, T-Mobile has product offering and drop issues pending on market. At&t has poor customer services, more expensive plans and a failing network, and for most VZW is just plain expensive for what u get, and they also have customer service issue. Please stick to the purpose of the story: was sprint justified in their firing of this employee. Whether they looked at log information of the company network or twisted SDKs’ arm this is serious because they are a publicly traded stock. Image is everything especially if the wrong information was passed out.
Sprint data and voice service works great for me. The sales figures that guy posted as an estimate are just for Sprint stores and probably on the low side. Best Buy, Radio Shack, and Walmart probably at least quadrupled that number. I have 8 friends that are now carrying around the phone in four different states (only one who had Android prior, and only 4 were on Sprint prior), so it wasn’t that poor of a launch!
@ckeegan, don’t be ignorant, did you miss my comments above? Do you read through the comments? Do you honestly believe Sprint only sold 3 EVO’s per store? Sprint stores on average sold 30 EVO’s on launch day. Bestbuy alone had upwards of 60 pre-orders for the first wave of inventory.
I love mine too kevin. As long as they sold 1 to me, I’m happy.
Another one taking it up the can.
Well, I have read all the posts on this and come to this conclusion. If the employee made up the numbers and posted them, then he should have had some kind of punishment and if he didn’t make it up, I am sure the company demanded secrecy, and he should have been punished. I am not sure what the policy is there but firing might have been extreme unless that was the policy the company put out.
About the Eco haters, as far as I am concerned, this is a great phone. I have been a Sprint customer for years and have no problems. The $10.00 charge is not an issue because for unlimited data I am still paying less than AT&T, Verizon and others with their now limited data plans. Just my opinion, with some facts.
“epic failure” … wow, what a tool.
Dude all i know is that I know 4 people with evos already … that two more than the new I phone. So we shall see the employee got canned because of the stock price people gotta make money by underestimate then blowing all expectations. That how it works folks.