Despite the fact that the January-launched Google Nexus One smartphone was being touted as a potential iPhone challenger, the phone has failed to live up to the expectations in terms of sales numbers.

Undoubtedly, the Nexus One is the best Android-based handset thus far; and, as per CNET writers, it actually surpasses Apple’s best iPhone, the 3GS, in performance. Nonetheless, the debut-month sales of the device stood at merely 80,000 units – that is, barely 13 percent of the iPhone’s debut-month sales figures of nearly 600,000 units.

Not only has the Nexus One fallen way short of the original Apple iPhone in sales, the device has sold even lesser than the Motorola Droid - the first successful Android-based phone which sold almost 525,000 units in its first month.

As per the market-watchers, the Google Nexus One has suffered the ‘low sales’ blows apparently because of the phone’s distribution model as well as lack of an aggressive advertising campaign by Google.

Furthermore, Google’s insistence that the Nexus One would be sold online only, and its virtual non-existence of a customer service infrastructure, have also contributed to the rather disquieting sales numbers of the Nexus One. The company has been at the receiving end of widespread criticism that its after-sales service in the US is far from satisfactory; and email complaints do not get an immediate response!