This is an odd conclusion considering that the Droid 4 was already the FOURTH iteration of a QWERTY device from that ONE brand on that ONE carrier, each iteration selling less than the one before as each faced more competition.

If you're interested, the actual reason for the end of the Droid QWERTY series was that the entire "Droid" brand was a Verizon-exclusive product-line with a big focus in sales and big budget in Marketing, just to compete with the iPhone (which was not available on Verizon until 2011).

For a vendor to win a slot in that lineup meant that Verizon Sales and Marketing put all weight behind selling that device, no matter what device it is. This made the Droid 1 and 2 a huge success, not because of the product but because of the sales channel.

But in year 3 (2011), the iPhone launched on Verizon, which put a huge dent in both sales-focus and budget of Verizon's "Droid" product-line.

Later that year, Droid 3 launched but was selling significantly less than its predecessors.

In that year, Verizon instead sold 6.5m iPhones (up from ZERO iPhones the year before).

So Motorola had to cut their losses on the already ongoing development of the Droid 4, the device was redesigned for a much lower total sales-expectation and then launched in 2012.

But the sales turned out even lower than expected: By Q4 2012 Verizon sold 14m Smartphones, with 10m (!) of them being iPhones.

The most successful Motorola device of that year was the Droid RAZR MAXX HD, a non-QWERTY flagship.

It was clear: That QWERTY keyboard didn't drive sales.