Google pulls plug on web store selling Nexus phones

Google is giving up its attempt to gatecrash the mobile handset market, saying that once it had sold its last batch of Nexus One smartphones, it would be closing its online store – just six months after it opened.

The internet search giant said it received the final shipment of the phones last week. "Once we sell these devices, the Nexus One will no longer be available online from Google," it said.

At its launch in January, Google called the Nexus, which uses the company's Android operating system, the "most innovative device" and said it would be easy to buy over the internet.

However, Andy Rubin, Google's vice-president of engineering, admitted in May that "some parts worked better than others". He added: "While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not."

The company said yesterday that the Nexus One would still be sold by its operating partner Vodafone in the UK.

Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner, said the move into selling handsets "had gone quite badly for Google". She added: "The company is now doing the sensible thing: it is cutting its losses and going back to its original plans for mobile."

Google's strategy in selling its handset online was designed to cut out the operator and "build a relationship directly with consumers", Ms Milanesi said. Yet she said the company had been "naïve" because only a fraction of the world's mobile phones are sold online. She said: "The carriers dominate the sales channels, especially in the US. Customers want to hold mobile phones in their hands and test them out before they commit to one." Other problems included the lack of subsidy for the device. "The company was not prepared for the customer care that went with selling a phone," Ms Milanesi added.

Google said taking on handset-makers and operators had been valuable because it helped to promote Android, which in turn brought in revenue from customers using mobile search. A spokesman for Google said: "The more higher-end [the] handsets, the more people are likely to search on them."

Use of Android has grown quickly. In February, it had 60,000 new users per day but last month that had risen to 160,000. Google dominates mobile search and earlier this year also bought mobile advertising network AdMob.

Ms Milanesi said: "The primary goal wasn't to make money from hardware, but promote a mobile environment in which Google can thrive."