Low sales of LG G2 - G2 General

The artical at androidheadlines says about significantly less sales figures of LG G2 in spite of being great phone. (I can not paste link here).
It says :
LG wanted to sell at least 3 million units internationally, too, but they’ve only sold 2.3 million, which is 20 percent less than what they were expecting to sell. To reach even those 2.3 million customers, LG had to increase its marketing budget, too, but it doesn’t look like their marketing campaigns have been very effective. Unfortunately for LG, marketing campaign effectiveness also depends on how strong your brand is and if you’re the kind of company that creates excellent products.
Whosoever has seen my G2 mobile felt that it is the one of the best phone which they also should have owned. However, most of them were pretty unaware (before they saw my phone) about LG G2.
What are the reasons do you all feel for low sales figures?
In my opinion, may be following are the reason for its poor sales,
1) Poor Marketting ?? - In India, I see that LG has advertised phone very poorly. Even their advertisements were not that catchy when compared to Sony Xperia Z1, iphone and Samsung phones.
2) Brand Value ?? - LG is not considered as top brand for their phones. In fact LG G2 is my first LG phone. Before that I have used Nokia N900, Galaxy S2, HTC, iphone...but never ever thought of buying LG phone.
3) Not removable battery ??
4) Position of buttons ??
5) Competion has better mobiles ?? - Samsung Galaxy S4 and Note 3, Xperia Z1, Iphone 5S, Lumia 1020
6) Launch of Nexus 5 ??
Do you see any other reason for its poor sale?

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Another reason would be bad update behavior on previous phones.

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Fir3blade said:
Another reason would be bad update behavior on previous phones.
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I don't think it's LG's update policy. The Mainstream doesn't care when or how they get updates, they even don't know which is the current Android Version. We (here on XDA) are only a view percent of all Consumers.
Although i agree on bad Marketing. On the launch of the S4 there've been dozens of TV commercials, Newspaper adds and and and .. honestly i haven't seen a single TV commercial about the G2
Before the G2 i owned the S4, which was rather quickly sold (no regrets - bad Phone in my opinion) and the HTC One. Seen the G2 in a Phoneshop and quickly fallen in love with it.
But anyhow that's the burden of small Phone builder companies like LG or HTC. They suffer from the almighty Samsung even they build the much better Phones. I always would prefer a HTC or LG device over Samsung but that's not what the mainstream thinks

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Its just visibility thats hurting them. The HTC One and S4 get all the headlines in the Android world, as far as branded unit go, and the N5 gets all the headlines as far as software is concerned, but the nexus isnt a big seller, despite what the Nexus nazis think.

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LG should take this as a learning curve and make sure LG G2 is updated quickly, also adveritse the next phone a more. The G Flex has got some coverage beacuse G2 rolled the ball for LG, now it is upto them to keep the momentum going.
2.3 million might not be a great number, but it is the beggining, probably LG will end with 2.5 million which is still pretty decent. This is how Galaxy series started for Samsung, G2 can do the same for LG.

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It's all marketing. People will buy anything shoved in their face.
I'm in Malaysia and my G2 is a Taiwan set since LG Malaysia doesn't care at all to launch this device here. Luckily lots of importer saw this opportunity to sell imported sets here.
Brand? LG seems to be doing well in other department. It's all about marketing really. I was in Aeon plaza the other day. People were all flocking in Samsung shop while Sony shop next door is empty.
Sent from my LG-D802 using xda app-developers app

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What a shame. This is such a great phone.
I agree that the problem is branding and marketing. Samsung marketing budget is insane.

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I see LG commercials on TV all the time, plus the carriers seem to be pushing the phone. I guess it comes down to brand recognition and a bad reputation of being slow on updates..if any at all, they're headed down the right track if they keep the momentum going, 2014 could be a successful year for them.

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I think the problem lies with the salespeople. When I was waiting for the Sprint variant to come out, I went to 5 different stores that sold cell phones (2 best buys, 2 AT&T stores, and a Sprint store.) Only one of them, of the five had a G2 on the display. There weren't any advertisements for the G2 (posters, nothing.) in 3 of the stores, and 2 of the stores the salespeople didn't even know what a G2 was.
The only store that had a demo unit was the second Best Buy I visited and when I went to pick up my device from them, they insisted I go with the Note 3. I just have to say, with Samsung being the standard, it's hard to fight against but LG's marketing is very weak here, at least in Jacksonville FL. Of course, all five stores I visited had Samsung ads plastered on every square inch of available space they had.

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One thing: LG needs to dish out faster updates. Like Kitkat should come in Jan 2014 itself. All the trch websites are bound to pick up on that. Samsung nerds did good publicity for them and hence they are where they are. LG needs to make sure that whatever limited customer base they have gets the best service in terms of hardware and software.
Average buyers will follow soon.

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1 For many people that know about the companies, it's the history of the updates. I was very hesitant because of that. That can be corrected if they push out updates and keep them coming for at least a couple android versions. Look at Samsung's reputation after the Moment. That phone was a pain in the arse and turned me off of Samsung. But they have definitely come back from that. LG can do the same by keeping this phone up to date.
1 For the general population is the timing. A LOT of people renewed their contracts with a HTC One, or the S4 or Note3. So they "couldn't" get the G2, because they don't want to pay full price.
Having a removable battery and an SDcard slot would have been a huge benefit.
Marketing would have helped a lot too, especially for companies like Sprint with the G2 being the first phone to support Sprint Spark. And for Verizon to advertise more about the wireless charging being built in.
For the comment about the sales people, at the Sprint store I went to, they highly recommended the G2 when I went in to compare the S4 and the G2.

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I think it's due to the marketing of the device more so than the reputation of LG. I've seen maybe 5 G2 commercials on prime time TV shows. They need to sell the strengths of the phone, which to me is the speed and the huge battery. Only once have I completely drained the battery and that's because I was using it literally all day. If they sold it like the droids 48 hour battery life and mentioned the processor is on par with a new laptop people would be more interested. I think Samsung has cornered the market with the S4 because of their marketing. Don't they have a marketing budget of like $24 BILLION next year? It's hard to compete with something like that.

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Personally, I'm always apprehensive about buying any sort of electronics device. I never want to get stuck with a lemon but sometimes it happens. The only thing I can do to try to avoid that is to read and watch reviews to get a better sense of whats out there. Sales people are generally going to do whats best for them. They want the commission. So that said, I almost didn't go with the G2 because the reviews were very negative. In retrospect, I can honestly say the reviews were incredibly unfair. But the average person might be swayed by them. Seriously, if Apple or Samsung put the volume and power button in the middle of the back of the phone it would be hailed as innovation. But LG did it and it was panned. The funny thing is, I don't think its nearly that big of a change as reviews made it out to be.

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I think Post #2 hit the nail on the head.
LG really screwed over every previous owner with updates. And you can't say "oh the average user doesn't care about updates" is a big load of crap. People have been expecting updates ever since the first iPhone. This isn't 2005 where everyone has a flip dumbphone. EVERYONE looks for updates. Why do you think Samsung is so big now? Because everyone knows that Samsung will push 1-2 updates out to you and the software is quality. LG got the G2 right with software and hardware quality (no bugs or broken issues) but past LG phones have been notoriously known for having quirky bugs (reboot issues, overheating, GPS, etc) and never getting updated.
LG's previously history is so bad, that I am receiving Class Action Lawsuit papers in the mail on the LG G2x.
This hurts sales and it is nobodies fault except LG. This is exactly what happens when you don't take care of your customers (in any aspect; washer/dryer, tv, etc). I love the G2, as many do, but I really really really beat myself up over picking one up. I almost didn't do it just because it had LG on the front.
I can see LG has a winner with the G2. Their marketing team is doing a great job because I am seeing tons of commercials and ads for it. The name is getting out there and sales will probably be steady moving forward. But LG has to keep the ball moving with a steady stream of updates for the G2 or else they will be right back in the same "oh our sales numbers are low and we don't know why" category next generation.

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Bad marketing and the name brand are the culprits.
An average Joe doesn't know and doesn't care about what inside the device, left alone which version of the OS. They don't know whether its 4.2.2 or 4.4.2. Average Joes don't care about the update, they just simply want to use the phone.
Samsung is too big in the market and overshadow the LG, not only in the the Android phone market but also in TV market.

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It's the brand and marketing. Plane and simple. A name like galaxy sticks in your head. You hear droid... and you know what someone is talking about. G2? It doesn't stick in the mind. People like catchy. Also, Sammy slammed the crap out of iPhones in its commercials. The next big thing is already here. That's genius. Learning from you.. yawn lol. Why did the og droid do so well? Was it better then an iPhone at the time? No.. but it's ad campaign and branding was amazing. The idont commercial was one of the best ever.
When non android users ask me about my g2.. they say one of 2 things. Is that one of those galaxy phones or is that a droid phone?
When the galaxy nexus was first leaked, it was either the droid nexus or nexus prime. I was actually really bummed when it was called a galaxy because of how cool nexus prime sounded to me. Point is, I almost didn't buy it because of its name.
Branding matters....
Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk

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I think how its been marketed and not the quantity of ads. I've seen a ton of ads in southern California, but it's all about the back buttons and camera.
If they focused on how much of a beast it is, it might have turned a few more heads.
The droid 48 hour claim ain't nothing (good commercial though). I'm on hour 58 with 25% battery remaining.
It's a beast, sell it as such.
My $0.02
Sent from my LG-D800 using xda app-developers app

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They definitely need to push the battery more in their advertising. It's the only reason I got this over the Nexus 5!

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player911 said:
I think Post #2 hit the nail on the head.
LG really screwed over every previous owner with updates. And you can't say "oh the average user doesn't care about updates" is a big load of crap. People have been expecting updates ever since the first iPhone. This isn't 2005 where everyone has a flip dumbphone. EVERYONE looks for updates.
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This is simply not true. Out of EVERYONE I know with an Android phone, not a single one of them has EVER asked me how I like the new update, or when will we get an update. EVER. Those of us that know anything about upcoming updates are the rarity. We only know about them because of the sites we visit and participate in. Most likely a fraction of a % of the total smartphone universe.
Thanks Devs. From my VZW G2.

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trickster2369 said:
This is simply not true. Out of EVERYONE I know with an Android phone, not a single one of them has EVER asked me how I like the new update, or when will we get an update. EVER. Those of us that know anything about upcoming updates are the rarity. We only know about them because of the sites we visit and participate in. Most likely a fraction of a % of the total smartphone universe.
Thanks Devs. From my VZW G2.
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My colleague has said this to me, "All I did is install an update and everything looks different."
I believe that people want to be on the latest software available to them, but don't have the slightest clue what's different between versions.