Google's Nexus One Android phone could end up being a miss for the search company with the golden touch.

About 20,000 Nexus Ones were sold in the first week, compared to 250,000 for the Motorola Droid and 1.6 million for Apple's iPhone 3G S, estimates Flurry, an analytics company that tracks the usage of developer applications on iPhone and Android platform.

The shockingly low number, if true, means the Motorola Droid outsold the Nexus One more than 12 times and the iPhone 3G S had 80 times the sales of the Nexus One in its first week.

"As a product, the Nexus One boasts the most advanced Android OS to date as well as unique features," says Peter Farago, vice-president of marketing in a blog post on Flurry. "However, potentially due to the heightened promise created by early buzz, the handset has ultimately fallen short on sales expectations."

Google declined to comment. "We are not disclosing sales data for Nexus One phones," says a company spokesperson.

Google introduced the Nexus One on January 5 as the first Android device that would be sold by the search company itself, rather than a manufacturing or carrier partner. The Nexus One, which runs Android 2.1, has been designed by HTC and works with T-Mobile’s network in the United States.

The device retails for $180 with a 2-year T-Mobile contract, while an unsubsidized version is available for $530. But you can only get the Nexus On through Google's online store, and only if you're in the United States, for now. The iPhone 3G S was available in eight countries at launch.

The move has sparked complaints from users unhappy with the poor customer support from Google, which offers no phone or in-store help. Nexus One has also faced device-related issues, such as its inability to effectively connect to T-Mobile's 3G network and complaints about the touchscreen.

All that may have taken a toll on the Nexus One's popularity among consumers. Google's phone also lacks the "'wow' factor that is now expected with each new challenger to the iPhone," says Farago.

The Nexus One has a vivid, crisp OLED display and a 1-GHZ Snapdragon processor that makes it the fastest on the market. It includes voice recognition, turn-by-turn navigation from Google Maps and improvements to the user interface in the form of the latest version of the Android operating system.

Still, most of it is seen by analysts as an "evolutionary" improvement and one that's not enough to compel customers to overwhelm Google's online store.

Google's online launch of the Nexus One could also be blamed for the slow sales.

"It's a very different go-to-market strategy compared to Verizon's launch of Droid, on which it spent a record-breaking $100 million on marketing, including aggressive TV advertising spends," says Farago.

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