Since the Nexus 4 went on sale in the Google Play Store in Australia on November 13 it has remained frustratingly out of stock with unfortunately no news on when it will return, LG has cited unprecedented demand for the device as the reason that no local retailers have been able to stock the device as yet and now a thread over at XDA has started to piece together a rough estimate of exactly how many of the sparkly backed devices have been sold so far.
The XDA Thread has worked out the numbers based on a break down of the serial numbers from Nexus 4 devices sold to users on the forum. To get the manufacturing information you have to enter in your IMEI Number at the end of this URL : http://csmg.lgmobile.com:9002/csmg/b2c/client/auth_model_check2.jsp?esn=”IMEI Number Goes Here”
What is returned is something like this :
LGE960 AAUGBK 210KPED064804 20121031 GLOBAL/GLOBAL N N
This information has been broken down so far into this :
TechCrunch has found the latest built phone being :
“374110 28-th AUSGBK” indicating that at least 374,000 phones have been manufactured and distributed so far. Google does not comment on the number of Nexus devices sold, official numbers of Nexus 7s sold was only released by an Asus executive, so it’s not known if this is an accurate number but it’s a pretty good piece of work from XDA.
Plug in your IMEI and let us know in the comments when your Nexus 4 was made.
My 2 from the US were both made in December: 171047 & 178222
This is absolutely ridiculous. They could have sold 2-3 million by now.
I think you might find it’s the other way around, if you read this article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/jan/03/google-nexus-4-phone-sales) it looks like Google are limiting supply so as not to upset other handset manufacturers and telcos.
Well if this is the case well done google because myself and a number of my friends all went to Nokia and win ph 8. The firmware release schedule was just to problematic with other manufacturers, they shoot themselves in the foot and google backs them up.
Way to drive the customer away.
Sorry, not seeing how this is contradictory to what I posted? The article in The Guardian says less than 400,000 and says in the article ‘making an estimated total of 370,000 units since it first went on sale from Google’.
LG Themselves supplied the quote ‘Unprecedented Demand’ to us directly here at Ausdroid – http://ausdroid.net/2012/12/03/nexus-4-too-popular-unprecedented-demand-sees-delay-of-stock-to-australian-retailers-delayed-till-early-2013/ so we have to go on that information.
Google themselves if you ask their Press staff will give the same comment when requesting numbers to the effect that Google does not comment on sales numbers.
I suppose this is the last time LG will ever be allowed near a Nexus product. What a massive, massive cock-up. Not having enough stock is disastrous. It really looks like nothing new is coming either. I bet it’s ruined a few Christmasses for those Google employees stuck having to unravel the mess made by LG.
not really, i mean the nexus 7 and 10 were also sold out and the 7 has been around for ages and the 10 is made by samsung. Also, the 10 doesn’t have NEARLY as competitive a price point as the 4 and tablets aren’t as popular as phones. LG got an order, they fulfilled it. It was Google’s fault if anything for not doing preorders/ordering more. I doubt any nexus has ever received close to this much demand, so clearly they were caught off-guard. If stock comes back and last for more than 3-4 days then I think it… Read more »
Bullshit. Your telling me that all those phones sold out in 20 minutes in Australia on release day and haven’t been able to get more stock since because thats all google ordered?? Thats nearly 2 months ago! Not one solitary phone since then. The nexus 7 wasn’t that hard to get. I walked into JB hifi and bought one shortly after release. The Nexus 4 has pretty much ONLY been available through the play store and it hasn’t appeared since release day. Its BS I tell you. LG is to blame. http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/12/lg-is-to-blame-for-no-new-nexus-4-handsets/
Did Google Australia end up getting back to you with any info re Nexus 4 availability??
Unfortunately not, nor did LG get back to me instead referring me to Google Australia
I also want to know roughly how long. Weeks? A couple of months?
I need a phone. Do I wait, or do I go with something else?