Verizon unable to keep Droid Incredible in stock due to part shortages

By on May 15, 2010 at 7:58 AM
General May 15, 2010

HTC-Droid-Incredible-13

An inadequate supply of parts is partly to blame for widespread shortages of Droid Incredible, Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam said on Friday. Having been unable to stockpile enough key components such as the WVGA capacitive display assemblies manufactured by Samsung, entire shipments of the HTC-made Android smartphone are selling out within hours of their arrival at retail stores. According to McAdam, the shortage is so dire that his company “had to pull way back” on deliveries in order to focus on online sales. Had there not been such a dearth of handsets available, McAdam said the Incredible would have outsold its predecessor, the Motorola DROID; some 100,000 units of the Incredible were sold during the first two days of sale. As of this morning, Verizon’s website claims that orders for the Incredible will be fulfilled by June 3rd.

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  • firemanprice

    I got mine from Bestbuy the day it was released. This is the best phone on the market for right now. Word is out now about it, so now they can’t keep them.

  • patrick

    Seems to me that they (being all parties involved ) should Have gotten their shit together before releasing this phone. Or maybe vzw is launching some other device that they want to capitalize more on?

    • Bozz

      Yes moron, they have the hottest phone in the industry right now so they are trying to delay sells of it to save parts for some imaginary phone. What part of shortage did you take to mean conjure up paranoid fantasy?

      • junkee

        This is kind of silly logic. With all the phone competition out there it would be stupid to create a shortage and instead of having the phones available for purchase. It would be smarter for Verizon to have the Incredible available before the EVO or iPhone 4g are available.

  • Pistal

    Hail to HTC for bringing healthy competition to the mobile device market, taking apples shit…all with the good intention of bringing cutting edge technology to its consumers….how it should be!

  • Mike Hewitt

    The reception on this phone is not incredible its terrible.. Im on my second phone and now they dont have any others to try a replacement. I hope Verizon gets it together with this issue.

    • Sonya

      Verizon or HTC?

    • Clifton

      I haven’t had any reception issues with mine, it actually even works great for me in areas with low signal.

  • ljp

    It’s going to be a growing problem within the industry. Apple and RIM have referenced some supply constraints in their earning reports and the smaller players will have a tougher time securing parts. A great phone isn’t so great when you can’t get it in the hands of the consumer.

    • palomosan

      I got mine the day Verizon said it’ll drop, if they’re running out it’s because of the demand for this phone, period.

  • MT…Fios!!!

    I received my Incredible on April 28th one day ahead of launch date and had no issues with it. Its an awesome phone for now but im sure as we are technology hungry customers it will be outdated with new technology in about 6 months or so, with that being said I still love this phone and Im sure anyone wanting this phone will not be disappointed.

    • droid

      its outdated on june 5th

      • SteveTheSupremeLeader

        Only if you are willing to jump from a great service provider to the second worst.

  • jambajuice

    i like the droid incredible as much as anus pie.

    • gw0n

      I have not tried anus pie so I will take your word for it.

  • StevenGlansburg

    If the Evo was on Verizon id consider it. I’m really starting to see why Sprint and T-mobile charge so much less now that I travel more.

    • Mr. Anderson

      what happened to the link to your site there Glansburg?

      • Bunifa@SprintPOS

        This guy is full of shit. Here is what you posted a few days ago.
        “I’ve been back on T-mobile since January and I have not even had close to the amount of issues I had on At&t or Sprint.”
        Your other name “VZWHoustonRegionalManager” – just another VZW drone. Sprint has Verizon roaming agreements nationwide so you will be able to a call wherever Verizon has service. You’re a failure

      • Arshad

        Does Sprint really have roaming agreement with VZW? I always hear conflicting info about that whenever I try to do a search to find something official about the agreement. And if that were the case then how come they have poor service where VZW is strong?

      • Bunifa@SprintPOS

        They do but their phones are set to only roam on VZ when sprint has no service at all and you can’t manually force it, which sucks but the nationwide roaming is still there.

      • Mr. Anderson

        @ Bunifa… are you talking to me or Glansburg? Because I only post under this name, & I’ve been on big red for like ten years. & while I’m not a big fan of their prices, I happen to love the service. & while I’m not a big fan of t-mos service, I think their price plans rock. Big blue, well their plans are pretty much the same as vz dub’s, but their service is slightly sub par. soooo in other words, you must have been talking to Glansburg. holla!

      • Verizon Indirect

        Funny story, I was working at my Verizon store, when I had a family come in and start a brand new 4 Line deal with Verizon. I asked who they were coming from, and she said she and her family have been with Sprint for the past 5 years. Apparently she moved recently to an area of PA not even 40 minutes away from Philly and she received a phonecall from Sprint. They told her where her family moved is causing her to roam off of Verizons network constantly and because of this they were dropping her and her family as customers. Being the great customer service oriented company they were, Sprint was nice enough to not charge her early termination fees when they cancelled her 4 line deal. They actually had the balls to tell that point to the family as if they were doing them a favor or something. In summary Sprint has roaming aggreements but they are limeted, that or they just get their kicks screwing over longtime loyal customers.

  • palomosan

    The best phone until the EVO drops, mind you I have the Incredible.
    I ordered mine as soon as the announcement was made, this phone is selling like cup cakes.

    • jgoitom

      i semi agree with you if the evo had the same spec’s as the Incredible then it would be a winner cause of the very large screen but the incredible is the best droid phone out there.

  • http://getbuzzbird.com/bb MOS Burger

    I got mine yesterday. I called every Verizon store in southern Maine, and all of them said there were none left in New England. I was able to find a Best Buy a half hour away from my house that had two left. When I got there, there was one other lady there who wanted the other one.

    I reckon I might’ve gotten one of the last ones (if not THE last one) in the northeast.

  • mobileswitch

    This is becoming quite the trend….. it seams that every hot phone launched in the past 2 years has had this problem and i call bullshit. Either inventory/production managers arent doing their jobs correctly or its on purpose. i think its a way for carriers to spread out new activations, and phone sales over a few months as apposed to dumping all into its launch month. They nabbed huge sales at launch (end of April), May grabbed a bulk, and now they have June taking action. its almost as if they had 1 million units in stock at launch, but will only allow 250k out the door a month and they will keep this up as long as the demand is there. I dont think they will dare have back-orders/ shortages beyond the big June 4th date…… hence why it will be back in stock on the 3rd.

    • Reggie S

      Personally, with new Android handsets releasing every other week, they are probably scared to stick up too much on them for fear of being stuck with excess inventory. (Can we said Droid and Eris??) Verizon probably did not order a boat load of them for this very reason. given a small order, HTC didn’t buy excess parts beyond their initial production run. Now the production of the Evo is underway and it’s sapping up parts that could be used on the Incredible.

  • sean76

    Jeeeeeez already! Ok we get it, the phone is HOT! however it does have issues, like bad reception, bad signal strength, rebooting, etc! Mind u, its still a sick phone. But VZW us hiding something. And I bet u they are scared shit of the EVO. They knew demand would be high, its got to be an internal problem with the unit. Explain how so many people are saying , I love the phone now that I’m on my 2/3rd one and it works perfect.

    • Eric

      I do not think that VZW is scared of a phone that runs on the Spring network. Sprint has been bleeding customers for quite a while. They will get some new customers because of the EVO, but I don’t think it will be a large amount. It isn’t like the iPhone is going to Sprint. There are a number of reasons that Sprint has been in trouble lately: bad coverage and bad customer service. The EVO won’t be enough to change that perception for a lot of people.

  • JoshD4

    This is just dumb and bad business. Signs of desperation i say…

    think about it, they want to get as many people as they can into contracts as quick as they can (they meaning both Sprint and Verizon) because they know that the hemorrhaging will begin late June or July so they both pushed up the release date way before they were ready. The EVO will be the same way

    I wonder how empty the other companies stores get after the Iphone launches?

    • Joe B.

      Sprint has been losing customers for several consecutive quarters, but I should Point out Verizon has been continually gaining customers quarter after quarter, and still remains the provider with the most customers with just under 93 Million. This has been true despite having to compete with the Iphone for the past 3 years. And that was back before they had anything close to the Iphone in terms of quality. The newest crop of Android phones has obviously fixed that. The Ipone 4G will sell very well I’m sure as have all the past Iphone models but it’s gonna take a hell of alot more than another Iphone model to cause Verizon to hemmorage as history shows.

  • 3 Phones Jugglin

    Yea….they better fill those orders by June 3rd. Cuz once 8pm Comes on the 4th…..

  • Gag

    Considering this is the more than adequate consolation prize for not getting the Nexus One, I’m happy for Verizon and its customers. Too bad this phone will be chopped liver when the EVO comes out.

    • Joe B.

      It’s the same phone as the evo minus a front-facing camera, hdmi out, and the access to the Wimax 4G where Sprint actually has it even available. I would hardly call the Incredible chopped liver. These are decent features but does it really make it worth tolerating a second rate network with notably bad customer service. Also it should be pointed out Verizon launches 30+ 4G LTE markets by the end of this year. It won’t support phones until next may or so but they are going to be expanding their 4G Network at an incredible rate and have already announced they will have coast to coast coverage by 2013. Sprint has a nice headstart but thats all there is, by mid-late next year Verizon is going to have them surpassed.

  • Stangs55

    And it’s certainly deserving of all that hype.
    I just upgraded to the Incredible this week after having a Moto Droid since launch and all three generations of iPhones before that. The Droid was a big disappointment for me for a number of reasons.
    But, finally, the Incredible seems to be what I’ve been waiting for.

    • nico

      what were some of your reasons for being disappointed with the droid? i’m trying to choose b/w droid and incredible. the thing that scares me @ incredible is battery life. let me know – i’d like to hear your opinion.

      thanks stang …

  • JohnDope

    I love it! Best phone in the market as of now! The EVO might be the better phone but its still technically part of the same family, ANDROID!!

  • NYC567user

    I got mine pre-ordered, excellent ordering service via VZ (no issues and it showed up early before due date)…however I ve returned it to VZ after a couple of weeks in frustration and a few dealbreakers..that were a must for my daily routine.

    1 – FM Radio – I liked this feature and needed it. But VZ does not include earphones with this device….which are a must to get reception (not mentioned anywhere in their literature). So if you have bluetooth headsets you have to go and buy wired ones. Once you buy the wired ones, almost all have crappy reception. So much for FM radio.
    Do they make a 10 foot long earphone? That might help…

    2 – FLASH for WEB SITES- Yes it has flash. The first time I tried it..worked great…subsequent uses it did not work well (slowdowns longer than 2 to 4 minutes, or not working at all) ..required a reboot…then it worked again. This flash is no ready for primetime.
    Hopefully the Adobe release will fix this.

    3 – BATTERY – Yes, and I have used many HTC phones before…so I know how to condition the battery as well as changes on the system to make the battery last. However, if you travel and are not near an electric plug, the best you can do is carry two batteries. VZ still does not have the extended 2150 battery and other non HTC extended batteries are not available yet or marginally so-so (not worth the benefit of price vs battery life).
    What kind of major wireless carrier does not ensure some basic things like enhanced batteries and wired headphones are not available? or at least put headphones included in the device (let the blamestorm between HTC and VZ begin).

    So far…add the cost of extra batteries and earphones to your new HTC Incredible.

    Also…as you have noticed we are entering the very sunny days of summer….and you need brightness to see who calls you are in the sunny outdoors…so there is a need to keep some automated brightness or keep it a bit brighter in daytime….there goes one of the tricks to keep battery longer.

    4 – VOICE Quality – For me this was the biggest dealbreaker. While the phone never dropped a call, almost every call was choppy…to the point I had to call back several times to get a clear connection or use another phone. Yes…I did read about the bad batch units with blown speakers..some people used bluetooth headsets to get around this. But this workaround did not work for me. Yes, I know location will affect..but I had a VZ Blackberry with me…many times I had to call using the BB….sad but true.

    5 – RECEPTION – It is known that HTC develops weak radio reception chips compared to say… Nokia or Moto…but you give up some benefits for the good of other ones (1ghz chip). As #4 above..comparing side by side on a non HTC unit..say a Blackberry…on the same VZ network…everywhere you go…there is a significant difference. Perhaps they can fix this via a software update?

    6 – MUSIC PLAYER – This unit kept force closing on me every time I listened to a song and looked around for other songs. If I just let it play it would work fine. Did put in a new micro SD card thinking it was the MicroSD, reloaded songs, used different songs, created new lists..etc…same problem there. Went back to using music player on another PDA unit.

    Some people might say…did you try other MP3 players that are on the Android market…yes..but they are ok at best and they do not mesh well with the OS. Only one MP3 player has an equalizer that works.

    Conclusion

    Good, not great looking device. Excellent screen, thin, light, fast!

    The 8MP Camera does take great pics (if people don’t move around so much – forget moving shots).

    In all, I did like the unit as a PDA to roam the internet while running several apps in the background. Other Android units can do this as well and use less battery.
    The tradeoff at the moment of fast response versus a dead unit by Noon…is not worth the trade for me.
    Did I have a bad unit?..Don’t know, I would have needed two HTC Incredible units to compare..perhaps..but that is up to VZ to find out over time as the numbers pile up..or not. It was a good run while it lasted.

    • DroidIncUser

      I’m guessing you’re either an iphone fanboy and never actually had the phone testing it or you had a defective phone. I’m betting you’re an iphone fanboy.

      FM radio worked fine for me.
      Quality was fine for me
      battery is average for me
      flash works fine for me
      phone is fine for me
      camera works fine for me

      I got mine on April 28th.

      • NYC567user

        No…just lucky enough to test units…I would not write up all these details if I was making it up….I do not obsess enough to be a fanboy of any electronic unit (or change my name to any droid login)..I tend to prioritize other things in life that matter. Just want to compress what I carry around on travels to the least amount of gadgets and chargers. Would be nice to leave a real camera, radio, mp3 player at home and have it all in one phone. The search continues…

    • BeLogical

      Seems like a fair review. Here’s hoping it was a faulty unit!

    • Derrick

      Thanks for the review, don’t worry about the haters. An honest review is what I appreciate form a real world user. Like any review (DroindIncUser) you have to take some things with a grain of salt and determine what would be a deal break for you, and what could have been bad luck.

      I think I’ll keep my Droid. I need a real keyboard and I knew a 1GHz processor would create a problem. I overclocked my Droid to 1GHz but the battery trade off wasn’t going to work for me. So I toned it down to 800Mhz which was plenty fast for a mobile phone and battery life would get me through the day.

      What we need is for these battery companies to get on the ball. Technology is moving faster than battery technology.

      • Joe B.

        I guarantee the unit was faulty. It’s funny how the reviews I read including Gizmodo cited the Incredible as having the best call clarity/reception out of all Verizon phones. Also they have consistently said the battery is average nothing more nothing less. Unless you’re watching marathons of video on the thing you’ll at least get a full day out of it as is the case with pretty much any other touchscreen smartphone out there. So the comment about requiring a second battery is not true. As for complaining about the device not coming with earphones, Really? How many smartphones typically come with headphones honestly? Talk about dramatising such a non-issue.

  • David

    Parts as in the “phone.”

  • Bugs

    Low stock due to “part shortage” is another way of saying we’re not selling as many as we thought so let’s slow down our inventory orders. For real, who’s buy this knowing the EVO 4G is about to make a landing? If you’re stuck with Verizon I guess you have no choice.

    • Joe B.

      Haha dude you know jack shit, Incredibles are being sold out at the stores same day the stores are even receiving them. There is a widespread Display shortage (among other parts) which is killing inventory from being replenished. They sold 100,000 phones in the first 2 days of its release alone and extremely low phone supplies have been a problem since day one of its release, with the website selling its entire inventory in the first 2 hours of its release. The Incredible would be moving big numbers if these part manufactorers could do their damn jobs and stop watching the director commentary on their Buffy DVD’s or whatever they’re currently doing other than their jobs.

  • Derrick

    Damn it why couldn’t this have a QWERTY (physical) keyboard. Until then, my Droid will still rock out with it’s coooock out.

  • Ionus

    I switched from the BB Storm to the Incredible and as far as call quality for me, it has got better with with the Driod. I notice better clarity in the calls and fewer droped calls, I have not had any issues with my Incredible at all as it has been working just fine.

  • Don

    Ever since Verizon gave the program up grade, My Sirius radio repeats the same signal. Repeating parts of the broadcast over and over. Also app’s are trined on automatically, thus draining the better life. Another mess up, once you turn on the FM radio, you cannot turn it off by killing the app. You have to reboot your phone to turn it off. Now its up too me to copy everything down and reinstall it after a major reset. I feel like a genny pig.

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