Verizon Narrows Kin Target to Thrifty Young and Social Users
What does Generation Upload think of Kin, the social media phone Microsoft designed for it? Evidently not very much, because Verizon is cutting its prices barely a month after bringing it to market. Over the weekend, the carrier quietly reduced the price of both Kin models, dropping the Kin One to $29 from $49 and the Kin Two to $49 from $99.
Those are the sorts of price cuts you see with older phones, not newly launched ones. That we’re seeing discounts for the Kin so soon after its debut suggests that it’s not selling nearly as well as Microsoft and Verizon had hoped. Of course, neither Microsoft (MSFT) nor Verizon (VZ) will admit that. But the anecdotal evidence is pretty damning. As Ina Fried notes over at News.com, “A worker at one big-city Verizon Wireless store said the Kin is being outsold there not only by Droid smartphones, but also by older Palm Pre devices.”