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Daring Fireball: Microsoft sold 503 KINs

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 6:43PM EST
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John Gruber of Daring Fireball has a “well-placed” source who informed him that Microsoft sold a mere 503 KINs before the handset was given its end-of-life papers on June 30th. Speculative rumors of the device’s dismal sales figures have been tossed around willy-nilly over the last several week, and five hundred was a popular guess; others quoting anonymous sources pegged sales at “over 1,000 but under 10,000.” One Microsoft employee told website Business Insider:

“We had a huge launch party on campus and I bet that party cost more than the amount of revenues we took in on the product.  As an employee, I am embarrassed.  As a shareholder, I am pissed.  It’s one thing to incubate products and bring them to a proof-of-concept to see what works, but it’s something else to launch.  I suspect we launched because we felt like we HAD to so we could save face because we were trying to build buzz, but overall – huge fail.”

Ouch. Anyone out there know somone who picked up a KIN?

UPDATE: PocketNow is reporting that the KIN’s Facebook application actually registers itself when a user activates it. Currently, FB is reporting that the KIN has 8,810 active users, making Gruber’s 503 number very inaccurate.

[Read Daring Fireball] [Read Business Insider]