50,000 units of the HTC One E8 are sold in 15 minutes

The HTC One (E8) is a version of the manufacturer's flagship HTC One (M8) handset. The big difference is in the choice of materials employed by HTC. The E8 uses a plastic casing instead of the aluminum uni-body construction. In addition, the Duo camera set-up is replaced by a single 13MP shooter on the back. The use of plastic makes the E8 lighter than the HTC One (M8), and since it is offered in China, the former does come with dual SIM slots. We should also mention that the HTC One E8 is priced at 2999 yuan ($481 USD).

On Wednesday, HTC took to its official Weibo account to announce that it had sold 50,000 units of the HTC One E8, in just 15 minutes. That would seem to indicate that HTC is using the so-called "Hunger Marketing" tactic employed by manufacturers like Xiaomi. It's a controversial method that involves building up the hype around a handset. In the case of the E8, HTC had 2 million pre-orders. Keep in mind that in China, a pre-order does not reserve you a unit like in the states, and no money changes hands. It is just a way for consumers to receive email notification when a device is ready to go on sale.

Once the phone is sufficiently hyped, a small number of units is released. In the case of the HTC One E8, 50,000 phones were made available and were all sold out in 15 minutes. Now, the hype machine will regenerate demand for the device, and those who missed out the first time, are going to vow to themselves that they won't blow it again. It all adds up to a situation in HTC's favor with large demand and small supplies, even if both are artificially generated.

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source: HTC via GforGames