As usual, Nokia doesn't tell us much about the sales figures. Was the N900 a success? Did they think it'd do well and, in fact, it does? Does it even perform better than they thought it would on the market? Is it hard to sell? Maybe a complete desaster economically?

There are a few half-sentences here and there dropped by Nokians that the N900 is doing very, very well… But do we have any other indicators?

There's sites that list the lowest prices for gadgets in some markets. I usually use geizhals.at, which can be used to query EU/Germany/Austria. It also has a link to a partner site in the UK, skinflint.co.uk.

These sites not only list the current prices (and give you the best offer), but also let you see a chart of the price history.

What I found interesting was that in all charts I looked at, the price keeps rising since Dec. 2009. In the UK, for example, it was GBP 411 and is now GBP 446. In Austria, it was at € 509 and now is at € 539. Prices in Germany don't change that much, but still went up from €496 to €499.

Usually, you'd expect rising prices to be an indication of high demand, right? (Unless Nokia stopped producing the N900 in December and supply is low now...)

Do you guys have any similar indicators for other markets? Or any ideas what could be a useable indicator other than the price?

The only indicator i have of sales is that when i phoned my Nokia retail store they had received a morning delivery of 700 N900s and by 10:30am they had 5 left Well make that 4 actually after my call

For one, I tried to find an N900 from somewhere in Europe (Scandinavia, Central, West and South). ALL sold out, everywhere. This was the situation between beginning of December - 2nd week of January. Got mine from eBay as there was just no other way to get my hands on a new one. Either the initial batch was way too small - or the phone is doing extremely well :-)

Yeh, when I was a salesman all my stock had that kind of backstory

The device is still on backorder or "limited availbility" in most places that sell it, so my guess would be that it's selling quite a lot better than initially thought - it's been almost two months since the devices started shipping now (and I've had mine for about as long, not a single scratch nor unexplained reboot - love it).

Another explanation might be that they're having issues with getting enough parts, but it's Nokia we're talking about - usually the part vendors are chosen so that they can provide a steady supply or parts.

No, my guess for the sales figures is "met and exceeded the initial expectations by a decent margin". Two M sold devices by the time the next Maemo device is out isn't unrealistic in my opinion - and that's a very cautious guess factoring in the often-complained-about general rawness, "poor app store" and it not being fruit-themed nor Big Brother-infested.

Nokia's initial plan was to manufacture 30,000 per month. That's since been increased to 100,000 per month.

However, given it's out of stock in much of Europe, I'm guessing Nokia could probably ship 150-200k per month, maybe more with a price cut.

For comparison, the Pre (which is heavily carrier subsidised, and advertisied) sells 250-300k per month.

Or simply artificial limited availability.

I assume you cannot disclose your source, can you? I'd simpy love to publish these figures whenever people question the success of the N900 in other forums.

Interesting... can you give the source of this info (linkage?)

According to Geizhals.at N900 is ranked as follows:

1. HTC HD 2
2. Iphone 16 GB black
3. Nokia N900
4. Motorola Milestone