The Nexus 4 appears to have reached the big milestone — 1 million in terms of device shipments. The catch here though, this latest figure is based off of what we have seen in the past. If you remember back to early January, we saw reports about the Nexus 4 as having reached the 375,000 mark. While playing with serial numbers can be fun and interesting in a geeky way, we do have to remind everyone that the 375k number was later discussed by an LG executive.
Before we poke holes in the story though, lets focus on the 1 million milestone. As we saw before, this number from from a thread over on the xda-developers user forums. Rather simply, xda member draugaz has posted the news; “Ladies and gentlemen, we have just reached the millionth device!” The key here, it was noted that this is “just judging by serial number” and was minus the gaps.
Additional details coming from this posting show that IMEI prefix 35391805* is complete and a new one will be started. Now for the other side of the story, the side where we remain skeptical. Cathy Robin who is the Director of Mobile Communication for LG France was interviewed by Challenges.fr back in mid January. Robin discussed the Nexus 4 inventory situation, which seems to have improved since that point.
The other topic that came up during the interview was the 375,000 sales estimate. Robin stated that while she was not familiar with that estimate, that number was much lower than reality. Basically, the original method for estimating the Nexus 4 device sales was said to be on the low side. That means that either this latest number is inaccurate or that it actually crossed the 1 million mark a little while back. Either way though, like we mentioned earlier, sometimes dissecting serial numbers can be interesting.
Those with a Nexus 4 (or any other handset for that matter) can also do a little number play at the SNDeepInfo site. This site will give details on your phone based on your IMEI number. Some of the data includes where the phone was made (country), who it was made for (carrier), the date of manufacturer along with the age of the phone and even the color. If nothing else, this site could be useful for those looking to buy a used phone.
Thanks for the tip John K!
[device id=3766]
