No matter how you slice it, moving 500,000 units of
any product during its inaugural weekend launch is big. According to Gene Munster, analyst at Piper Jaffray, that's exactly what Apple's iPhone managed to pull off. After originally expecting Apple to sell "only" 200,000 iPhones on Friday and Saturday, he's now estimating that Apple sold a half-million iPhones from start of sales at 6pm on Friday until close of business on Sunday even with
supply issues at AT&T store. According to their survey, 95% of buyers purchased the 8GB model with 50% of all buyers making the switch from another carrier to AT&T. Great news right? Maybe, but in a potentially worrying trend, Apple is showing a marked decrease in iPhone availability at their retail locations this morning. While stores showed a 100% iPhone availability (they don't break it down by 4GB and 8GB models) on Saturday which dropped to 84% on Sunday, Apple's retail channel is showing a further decline in availability for Monday across Apple's brick and mortar retail business. In particular, Californians not living in San Francisco will have a tough time locating the device with 34 of 36 stores bleeding red on Apple's
retail locator site -- a potential supply problem especially if AT&T shops remain void of product. Sure, you can still order on-line albeit with that same
2-4 week delivery delay we've seen since day 1.
Update: Global Equities Research
claims 525,000 iPhones were sold through Sunday. A quick calculation shows that only 61% of Apple's 164 stores are stocked with iPhones for today or 23% fewer than yesterday.
posted July 2nd 2007 4:42AM
wait, why would you buy an iphone without having a computer with internet? you may as well buy an ipod shuffle instead- its not like your going to be able to put videos on it without internet...some people just baffle me...
Question - what's the big deal? Yes, it's cool - very very cool. But the camera sucks, and it doesn't replace your ipod because it has no memory (unless you're satisfied with the amount that the nano holds, which basically means you're not a music fan). And you can't really use the music player that much because it will kill the battery anyway.
So what you're left with is a LARGER cell phone than you used to have, and you're still carrying around your ipod and your camera. Admittedly it's cool and supposedly the web browser is very good.
But is that worth $600? I'm honestly confused. Please enlighten me.
"And you can't really use the music player that much because it will kill the
battery anyway."
Huh? 24 hours of music playback is not enough for you? In comparison, the Nokia N95 will do 4 hours.
"and it doesn't replace your ipod because it has no memory (unless you're satisfied with the amount that the nano holds, which basically means you're not a music fan)."
...or it means you know how to put different playlists on there every now and then. I know i dont need to carry around my entire 20gig music library all the time...
Lets not make assumptions about a product just because you dont like it.
No one mentioned anything about ease of keyboarding. How do you rate typing on the iPhone--easy, so-so, or difficult?
Oh please, will the hyperbolic crap ever stop? The article says
"moving 500,000 units of any product during its inaugural weekend launch is big"
Yeah, unless it is the PSP or the PS3, at which point we will still say it is a flop!
I know it is anathema to the internet, but let's keep these numbers in perspective. The RAZR, at the height of its popularity, sold 500,000 units a DAY, every day, for an entire quarter!
But of course, a RAZR doesn't have an Apple logo on it, so I guess that wasn't worthy of one post every half hour during the entire launch week. The iPhone does have an Apple logo, which means it is the best selling product in the history of the entire electronics industry, no matter how many actually sell.
Sources please!
@Sammy
Firstly, there's no need to be so snide. Secondly, simply choosing a contact and sending an MMS is a lot easier than working out which cell phone network they are with and appending the appropriate domain to the number. Heaven forbid someone wants that simplicity on a device that is marketed on ease of use.
500,000 units sold is pretty impressive. Do we have an up to date percentage of how many of those units then went on sale on eBay and Craigslist?
Wow...how totally unimpressive. 500k units for the most overhyped phone in the history of the world. It didn't even come close to doing Wii or PS2 numbers. whoopty-freaking-do.
yea, except Wii and PS2 owners dont have to worry about the extra cost of breaking a contract. Phone sales are measured over time, not in a day. Im willing to bet the iphone numbers continue to increase over the next few months as contracts expire.
When Microsoft owns all technology and all technology related companies in the year 2100 and it is all leased to you on a 'pay as you use' basis and free market forces and competition have all but ceased and shoddy second rate junk is all you get, we will look back at 2007 and remember with affection the freedom loving Zen like Steve Jobs and his crazy Apple dream of giving everyone beautiful and gloriously delightful simple but powerful technology.
Maybe then people will say 'maybe he wasn't such a bad guy after all. just a kid who started with nothing and created a dream we could all be part of'....
So...
Even if it's 500K or 250K Apple are certainly no threat to Nokia's 100 million phones a quarter so all the Microsoft fanboys need not take up arms just yet....
The enemy of my enemy is my friend...yada yada yada...Seriously, that's what's happening here...I can see RIGHT THROUGH IT....
Hmmm all you other big Labels paying attention. There is still a supply after launch. Just imagine Sony how many PS3's could have been sold before the buzz wore off. I think 3x or better.
As one of the few people who troll these boards who actually seems to have an iPhone, i can tell you that its more than i even expected and i expected a lot. it blows away every other device i have (and i have 43 at last count: been doing wireless device development since 2000)
the keyboard is fantastic. takes a bit of getting used to, but im already typing faster than i did on even my pocket pc, which had the biggest keyboard. their autocorrect feature is so good that you dont even need to be accurate when typing. NOTE (auto-correct would be great if you could turn it off, it can be challenging to type things that arent spelled "correctly" sometimes.
it took me 8 minutes to buy one on saturday morning (UTC Apple Store in San Diego). I walked in, they swiped my card in the scanner and i walked out.
Registration, Syncing etc... worked easily and flawlessly, as you would expect.
In short, It was expensive, and i'll probably replace it if a 3G version comes out, but it is by far the most elegant, fun and fast device ive ever been able to put in my pocket.
battery life seems good too. and the external speakers are better than i had expected.
the biggest problem is with At&t's slow Edge network. Fix that and this thing is perfect. Even without it, at least where i am i can always find a wifi network... so its perfect for me.
just fyi, i was at the apple store in downtown san francisco this morning. as of 9:30 a.m., they had sold out of the 8gb models. they were almost out of the 4gb.
I think 500k the first weekend is impressive, but the sustain rate might be too low to even come close to the figures predicted for the year or through 2008.
It's hard to imagine them selling more than 50,000 per week (averaged) over the next year and a half -which comes far short of Apple's overly-optimistic 10 million units, and even short of the 5 million analyst predictions by end of 2008.
But you never know... look at the Wii. Who thought it would do as well as it is when it was first announced?
Just was poking at it while in the store (can't activate mine).
Safari crashed on this page, load times is OK for non-wifi:
http://www.engadget.com/tag/iphone
Crashed on playing LOST video (blank screen, nothing happens).
Doesn't feel hot.
Hmm. The RAZR sold 50 million in two years, at about $200 average? So If Apple sells 1/3 as many units, they will have matched the RAZR in sales, right?
So if Apple sells about 8 million phones a year, they are doing better than the RAZR. When they were expecting to sell 200,000 this weekend, they projected 10 million this year. Extrapolate wildly, and it looks like Apple could sell about... 50 million phones in two years, at three times the price.
Of course, I know that's pure speculation. So let's do what you suggested, and wait to see how well it sells. "See you in two years." :) Or we can guess and assume.
One person is getting up to speed using multi-touch. I'd like to see some comparisons of mechanical keyboard typists vs multi-touch. I would think the mech. keyboards would win out but not by a wide margin. I believe it's just a matter of practice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKfhxMpEGpM
The 8GB iPhone is sold out in New York City. I just got back from the SoHo store, and I was told they only have 4GB models left. She continued, "we're sold out, Fifth Avenue [store] is sold out, AT&T is sold out."
I just wanted to inform my fellow New Yorker procrastinators.
Yeh, but they should be able to get new stock in a week or so. If the three million manufactured iPhones figure is true, then they must be in warehouses somewhere waiting to be shipped on demand.
Hey, this really proves all the nay-sayers wrong with a CAPITAL W including ENGADGET!!! That's soooo funny, now the only thing Engadget can make negative headlines about is wether Apple can keep up with the demand! Cool!! Sooooooooo funny.
THE IPHONE TOTALLY ROCKS, it's a GREAT product and should be given credit for that and yeah there are one or two glitches with it BUT NOTHIN'S perfect and that's why people are buyin 'em PERIOD.
500K huh? Well that accounts for most of the fanbois.
iSucka. In your godalmighty wisdom, at what sales figure do the fanboi idiots end and sales to the rest of the world begin. Pick a set number, effin iDork, so you can eat it in a month. Interviewers were casually asking people who didn't have Apple products why they were buying the iPhone and lots of people said they just saw commercials about it and said it seem like a cool device to have. You and this fanboi crap. Only a effin tiny amount of people have Macs in the US and you think that only Mac users are gonna buy iPhones. What a emeffin dingdong you are. Damn iMeathead. You think only Mac users have iPods, too? Guess again. iDelusional emptyhead.
The ideal should be to sell out, but meet all the demand there is at the same time.
Having unsold inventory is bad, but not able to meet the demand is bad too.
Per your example, say that the maximum profit you can make is P dollars, which would be the case where you have built exactly the number of phones that people will buy at that price.
If you overproduce by x, then your profit will be P - x*$250.
If you underproduce by y and fail to meet demand, it will be P - y*$350.
You lose either way.
Also, the initial demand will be front-heavy, but not all in the first few days. It will taper off to a steady stream, but before that, it should be best to have enough stock to absorb most of the initial demand over the first few weeks. So selling out the first day likely means you failed to maximize sales, whether it was your fault or not. (Maybe that was the best you could do due to component shortages, etc.)
The sales will not be sustainable, only crazy people and total newbies buy these.
Newcomers to AT&T's Edge are in for a rude awakening. I'm a current Treo user and know what they're getting into. Tried a friend's iPhone today and was impressed with the device, it's quite incredible. But as soon as I tried doing something on Edge, the connection stalled for one reason or another, echoing the prevalent experience I've had with the Treo 650 for the last year.
I couldn't help but smile bitterly, as this is all too familiar. In my opinion, the vast majority of users will eventually be worn off by the problems of actually trying to do stuff on Edge, and will gradually abandon all online features and use only the phone and iPod. The despair is inevitable and will be sinking in not too far from now.
I did notice that when Edge was working it was faster, and heard the AT&T got off their bums and boosted the signal for the iPhone. You have to wonder why only now, but this too is not important as the network will surely disappoint users sooner rather than later with inexplicable stalls and errors, regardless of last minute efforts by AT&T.
Apple has made a colossal mistake with AT&T and word will get out. The iPhone has tremendous potential, but this is true for all mobile phones. The bottleneck has always been the carriers, and Apple is stuck with the biggest, least responsive and most horrible of them all.
You never know, there might be an awful lot of total newbies out there.
I constantly hear that Apple made a mistake going with AT&T. Apple supposedly had gone to Verizon first and Verizon turned Apple down. Maybe that sort of limited Apple's options of choosing a large carrier. You weren't in on the negotiations, so you don't know what compromises had to be made. And you really believe that Apple wanted to have an exclusivity contract with one carrier. I doubt it. They could have easily sold more iPhones with unlocked SIM cards. The exclusivity contract maybe was the only way they could get their iPhone into any customers hands with the least effort. Five years seems like a heck of a long time if that rumor is true. Two years seems more likely, but maybe they set a dollar figure. If they make X number of dollars for AT&T in a set period they can opt out the contract. Maybe not, but that would be good for Apple if current iPhone owners can put up with AT&T. I think we're looking too far ahead with dirty eyeglasses to know for certain.
So the 2-4 week delivery time was really just to protect apple. I just received an email from apple stating that the 8g-iPhone i ordered online (by 6:05pm 6/29) would ship on July 6th. Yay!
These guesstimate sales figures of the iPhone are really getting out of hand. From a low of 250,000 to a high of 700,000. These analysts are just throwing out figures to suit themselves. All to be taken with a grain of salt either way. I wonder if most of the buyers are changing their carriers or were they already AT&T customers. I had seen where parents were buying their teenage kids iPhones. Damn, they got that disposable income to the max.
Wow, I don't think I've ever read more jealous hater posts stretching this far into denial. Whether or not you personally like Apple or the iPhone, the product is clearly selling extremely well. If you're trying to say that the sales so far are anything less than a home run then you are extremely biased, and if you search for your honest opinion, you'll see you already knew that.
I am torn, can anybody tell me, should I buy one or not? On the plus side, it is certainly the most beautiful cell phone I've ever seen. It also has a sturdiness to it, a quality feel, solid, well-made, (and it probably feels even more solid without the damn anti-theft cord glued onto the back). Like Job's, the attractiveness of a thing is important to me, and that touch screen is just incredibale...
On the other side of the equasion...no video, only 2MP camera, no mms, no auto-focus in camera, extra 20 a month for it's plan, no sending of files over bluetooth, and no using as modem either...
Part of me wants it and another part of me wants to wait till Sony's phone with 5mp camera comes...what to do?
Not if they get lot's of returns like mine.
Well, not sure I am the first but my iphone only died after two days. Battery empty and it never came back on.
Going back to my blackberry pearl.(works best for business) and fun I can have on a full blown UMPC with more features coming out soon for $500 or less. See articles on here.
Yes, it's a hot gadget but in the end I think there is some more work to be resolved.
I ordered mine (8GB) at the Apple Store at 6:09 PT, today I received an email saying it would ship by July 6. Not bad!
Apparently some Apple Stores are receiving such limited quanitites (Oakridge today received about 18 units) that they aren't showing "green" on their availability indication... The stores still have them, be there at open.
Competitors still do not understand. They are still talking about features. With sales figures like that, it is not about the features. This is about a cultic following in a post-modern culture!
Sure Apple sold 500,000 iphones. The stores are now showing red and for good reason. Apple fanboys mostly bought their phones from Apple stores. Now Apple is redistributing its iphones throughout the country to the many AT&T stores. So their stock is going to be lower than on launch day. Make sense?
Noah, I'm sorry - my comment was not directed towards you. I'm not sure if I like Engadget's threaded comment system... the replys don't always work out correctly.
YOU think before you speak. I CLEARLY STATED that it cost approximately $250 per iPhone to produce. At current sales numbers THEY ARE IN THE HOLE SEVERAL HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS. $450,000,000 to be exact! I WROTE OUT THE MATH FOR YOU. Good god, you people are dumb.
Adam - with a 55% profit margin, they only sold 17% of their stock so far. I'm going with the thought that most people who already wanted to buy an iphone, already bought one. Apple is in a serious money hole after the first weekend. $450 million loss after production costs and sales of the first weekend. They'll need to sell about 700k more phones to break even.