Essential Is Up For Sale, Future Phone Development Canceled

Essential is looking to sell itself barely a year after its first device launch. The company started by Android co-creator Andy Rubin, has talked to interested parties for a potential sale of the company.

The sale discussion includes the selling off of its entire portfolio, patents and future product ideas to the respective buyer. As such, all development of the second Essential Phone has been halted; instead Rubin is tasking the engineers to create a smart-home device slated for release next year.

We always have multiple products in development at the same time and we embrace canceling some in favor of the ones we think will be bigger hits. We are putting all of our efforts towards our future, game-changing products, which include mobile and home products.

— Andy Rubin (@Arubin) May 24, 2018

The Essential Phone itself did not get any good sales traction. It is reported only 150,000 units of the smartphone has been sold since its launch in May. Even then users has been complaining about poor camera, inability to make phone calls and even touchscreen issues.

Even with Andy Rubin’s name behind the company, Essential struggled to carve itself a niche in the Android smartphone world. Hence why it is consolidating its assets and looking to the next step; in this case, the sale of the company.

(Source: Bloomberg)

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