Motorola & Verizon Spending $100 in Marketing Per Droid Sold This Quarter

GigaOm noted…

Droid Nears Its Million-Device Target

Interesting. Nice start. But, nowhere near the 7.4 million iPhones Apple report selling in its fiscal fourth quarter (Apple Reports Fourth Quarter Results). But, that’s not what interested me. Here’s what did… The article’s first sentence: Motorola and Verizon’s $100 million marketing push seems to be paying off. Say what? One hundred million dollars? Let’s continue on. In the second paragraph we learn that: McKechnie expected Motorola to sell about a million Android-based phones during the quarter. Demand for Droid might be stronger than previously indicated, Sue’s numbers show. Earlier estimates for the Droid had pegged sales in the 600,000 unit range.

So, this $100 million marketing campaign is for sales of 1 million Droids. In other words, $100 of marketing is going to be spent for each individual Droid sold. Does this make any sense at all? I suppose it makes sense for Verizon whose revenue is based on monthly recurring costs (MRC) of a minimum of $70 per month per user ($840 per year). But, I wonder how much Motorola kicked into that $100 million marketing budget pot? I saw the Droid discounted below the initial $200 price at both Costco and Sams Club over the past week (about $180 now). Verizon probably kicks in a reasonable subsidy to Moto. But, wow. $100 spent for marketing per unit sold? That seems like a bit too much.

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