AT&T Facebook Home phone fares poorly, may be dropped

DALLAS, May 13 (UPI) -- Dismal sales of the first smartphone to ship with Facebook Home pre-installed have led AT&T to discontinue selling the phone, a tech website has reported.

Consumers have purchased only about 15,000 of the HTC First phone through last week, and sales did not pick up even when AT&T dropped the 2-year contract price from $99 to 99 cents after just a month of the phone being available, Boy Genius Report said.

Facebook Home, whether pre-installed as in the case of the HTC First or offered as an app through the Google Play store, has failed to garner any consumer interest amid poor reviews.

Boy Genius Report says AT&T has not only stopped selling the First but is returning unsold inventory to HTC.

Both Facebook and HTC have declined to comment, it said.

The failure of the First comes as HTC is struggling to survive, having just reported a 98 percent fall in first-quarter income, its sixth consecutive quarter in decline, InformationWeek reported.