Google has blamed LG for Nexus 4 shortages, and an LG spokesperson has said that production is proceeding as planned for its hard-to-find Nexus 4 handset, but Cathy Robin of LG France is telling a still slightly different story — at least for the French market. In an interview with Challenges, Robin said that the predictions Google had given LG France — based on previous Nexus sales — turned out to be lower than demand, causing a shortage. Now, she says production will ramp up, and that hopefully “market strain” will be gone by February. She also denies that the Nexus 4 was sold at a loss, though she did say LG and Google had reached an agreement on a “reasonable price.”
LG France says Nexus 4 production ramping up after Google underestimated demand
is a senior tech and policy editor focused on online platforms and free expression. Adi has covered virtual and augmented reality, the history of computing, and more for The Verge since 2011.
Though it’s tempting to assume the same faulty predictions happened in other countries — the phone sold out within minutes in the UK and is still out of stock in the US Play Store — Robin reports that estimated demand in France was much lower than elsewhere: “Predictions for the UK and Germany were ten times higher than for France,” she says, “therefore we shipped a lot more to those markets than to France.” Overall, though, she’s still (rather politely) pointing the finger at Google, as well as giving potential Nexus 4 buyers a ray of hope.
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