Amazon and Best Buy will be retail launch partners for Essential Phone

Essential’s president Niccolo De Masi says that the phone is still a few weeks away but promises to give us an exact date next week.

While there have been growing negative rumors surrounding Essential the past few weeks due to sudden executive departures and delayed shipping of its first-ever smartphone, it looks like investors have plenty of faith in the company and more specifically, in its founder, Andy Rubin. Earlier in June, we reported that Essential had received a $300 investment, putting its value at almost $1 billion. Well, today, the company gave us a better idea of precisely whom these investors are as well as a closer look at its plan of action for the US market.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Essential’s large roster of investors include multibillion-dollar companies like Tencent and Amazon. The company confirmed that Amazon and Best Buy will be its retail launch partners in the US, and given the fact that Tencent is one of the largest Internet companies in China, it’s possible that the phone will arrive in the world’s largest smartphone market in the future.

Unfortunately, however, Essential still doesn’t have a firm shipping date for its highly-anticipated titanium-enclosed flagship. The company’s president Niccolo De Masi simply reiterated that the phone would start shipping in a few weeks but added that he would give us an exact date “in a week.”

Andy Rubin and his company clearly want to disrupt the duopolistic US smartphone market, which is currently dominated by two companies: Apple and Samsung. With an innovative and sleek design, modular capabilities, and unique ceramic-titanium body, the Essential Phone certainly captured the attention of tech enthusiasts around the world. However, with Sprint as an exclusive partner in the US and Telus in Canada, Essential may not have such a far-reaching impact – at least not this time around.

There’s no doubt that the Essential Phone will be a much-appreciated new face in the overcrowded smartphone market, but people’s faith in Essential won’t last forever without an actual product on the market.

Are you planning on buying the Essential Phone once it launches? Do you think it will have a significant impact on the US smartphone market? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!