Apple's sold 4 million iPhones since launch

Today Apple announced that it's sold 4 million iPhones in the 200 days since launch, at a rate of roughly 20,000 a day. The phone apparently attained a 19% share in the smartphone market in the first quarter of its existence, and Steve Jobs says the phone bested Palm, Motorola and Nokia put together in the space in the first 90 days. It sounds like a pretty impressive pace, especially given the fact that only 1 million had sold by September of last year, but Apple still has a ways to go to compete with the likes of RIM.

[Orange Country @ Jan 15th 2008 12:33PM]

So it still hasn't sold as much as one of Nokia's more expensive models alone (N95). That's actually quite lame considering how much hype was created around this "miracle device". Bet they're pretty disappointed at Apple..

[fred @ Jan 15th 2008 12:42PM]

I have to admit that is pretty stunning.

and you have to remember that the vast bulk of those sold in the first month, so the numbers have been shrinking every month.

I can see why Engadget couched it in terms of "at a rate of roughly 20,000 a day" just to make it seem much more powerful.

"The phone apparently attained a 19% share in the smartphone market in the first quarter of its existence"

No, it SOLD 19% of smartphones in its first quarter. DUH, it was its debut quarter. What did they expect?

If it's sell more than that in quarter 2, 3, and 4, then crow.

[Reid @ Jan 15th 2008 2:00PM]

Apple was projecting sales of 10M iPhones by the end of 2008, which this MacWorld editorial thought was way too optimistic:

http://www.macworld.com/article/54941/2007/01/blewit.html

Looks like they're on target. As noted, at the time, RIM was selling 5.5M/12mo. 10M iPhones/18mo is nothing to sneeze at.

[Jeff @ Jan 15th 2008 2:08PM]

Reid:

You're assuming the sales pace will continue as it has. I don't think that's likely. No doubt a large percentage of this 4 million were sold first at launch and then right after the price drop. Now that the phone's been on the market for a while and the early adopter crowd satisfied, I don't see what's going to entice the mass market to buy in. Especially now that the holidays are over, sales are most definitely going to slow.

For them to hit 10 million by the end of 2008, they'd need to be at least at 5-6 million right now, barring any further changes to either pricing or features. And those may still be coming. But if so, then you'd be pretty dumb to buy in now.

I wonder how these sales compare to the Razr in its heyday. A few years back, seemed like every single person I saw on the street had one of those.

[james c @ Jan 15th 2008 10:09PM]

@Jeff

"...You're assuming the sales pace will continue as it has. I don't think that's likely..."

They're only selling in France, Germany, the UK and the US at the moment. There are plenty more countries where the iPhone hasn't even launched yet (Canada, Australia + NZ, Asia, the rest of Europe for starters), and I think those launches will have a pretty good chance of maintaining their current sales numbers. 10M by the end of 2008 is definitely attainable.

[Pdexter @ Jan 15th 2008 12:55PM]

I dont deny that i'm a bit of Nokia lover, but 4 millions sold and not totally globally as all Nokia's(exept North America=)) and i got my N95 free with contract...so it's not bad at all.

[Pdexter @ Jan 15th 2008 2:26PM]

I dont deny that i'm a bit of Nokia lover, but 4 millions sold and not totally globally as all Nokia's(exept North America=)) and i got my N95 free with contract...so it's not bad at all.

[Surur @ Jan 15th 2008 1:39PM]

So the iPhone is a smartphone now? I thought it wasnt supposed to be, seeing how it lacked so much...

Whats that Apple? Dont want to compete with other feature phones like the Razr?

[Boss @ Jan 15th 2008 1:45PM]

Lol where do Apple get their figures from??? Are they the figures from that planet they call mac world? These are the figures they would have like to have sold. My mate who worked in Apple store london said that the launch was embarrassing because the press were expecting big things for it in UK as it didnt really take of in US like they expected and it flopped big time. I still aint seen one person using one yet and i travel to the US a lot. I see more nokia 8800 scirocco's which i cant see have figures of 4 million sold world wide. Wakey wakey Apple. It's time to wake up from dream land.

[Big Apple @ Jan 15th 2008 7:41PM]

"My mate who worked in Apple store london said...it didnt really take of in US like they expected and it flopped big time. I still aint seen one person using one yet and i travel to the US a lot."

If I understand your pirate-speak, you need to put down the grog during your next raid on America; All these people tapping on little silver/glass thingys aren't putting on make-up, cap'n--those are iphones.

[Kaniu @ Jan 15th 2008 1:57PM]

There were 20 million Symbian smartphones sold in Q3 alone (http://www.symbian.com/about/fastfacts/fastfacts.html), considerering the fact there are other OSs too, 4 million iPhonese is nowhere near 19%.

[farukates @ Jan 16th 2008 2:30AM]

That 20 million figure is Worldwide. The iPhone was available in exactly ONE country for the entire 3rd quarter: the United States.

That's why the iPhone's 19% market share grab _in the US_ (for Q3) is a perfectly fine and true figure. Besides, it wasn't Apple's figure, it was Gartner's.

[anonymouspimp @ Jan 15th 2008 2:05PM]

Corporate fluff. All companies do it. Take some insignificant statistic and word it so it sound impressive. They are just confusing the general public to make it sound "hotter" than it really is. When in reality its just a PMP with WiFi and a phone. It's like a super expensive, hard to use Archos 605 WiFi with a phone and less memory... lol

[xbit @ Jan 15th 2008 2:09PM]

"The phone apparently attained a 19% share in the smartphone market in the first quarter of its existence, and Steve Jobs says the phone bested Palm, Motorola and Nokia put together in the space in the first 90 days...."

... IN THE US MARKET.

No figures for Europe mentioned at all and O2 UK aren't allowed to release them.

[To @ Jan 15th 2008 2:28PM]

I would think people go that(i hope at least) If nokia had alone 70% smartphone market share in quarter 2 2007 + others it wouldnt make sense thought as iphone isnt selling globally its all faire(would have been intrested to know how many the sold in Europe).

[L. M. Lloyd @ Jan 15th 2008 3:06PM]

Even in the U.S. market, I would love to know what magic Apple Math has 4 million phone being 20%. I suspect there is some very careful parsing of the word "smartphone" needed in order for this figure to make any sense. If you are talking about phones with the same feature set as the iPhone, then I suspect the figure isn't even 1%. It is clear that what Apple is doing is hand picking based on some criteria (like phones with a QWERTY keyboard), and then tacking the iPhone in there and saying "look how great our sale are." The reality is that their are 11 million active BlackBerry subscribers, so if RIM has 39% of the 'smartphone' market, as Apple claims, that would mean the market is 28.2 million phones, giving Apple less than 15% of that market.

Of course everyone except Apple puts RIM's share of the smartphone market at 20% (making the market 55 million smartphones), which would make Apple's share a meager 7%, but who cares about the real facts, it is Apple, and whatever they say are the new facts.

[Mog @ Jan 16th 2008 7:54AM]

L. M. Loyd: It's percentage of *new phone sales,* not *existing market share.* BIG difference.

But why let things like the actual statistics involved get in the way of your Apple hate?

[Jeff @ Jan 15th 2008 2:30PM]

They'd need to maintain a rate of about 17,500 iPhones sold per day for the rest of the year to hit their 10M goal...

We'll see. (If they'd offer a Sprint version, i'd be one of those 6M that still need to sell.)

[Rich @ Jan 15th 2008 2:58PM]

the apple marketshare statistics contain the worldwide numbers against the us only "other" manufacturers

[Carbonize @ Jan 15th 2008 3:08PM]

I'd like to see some sales figures for the LG Viewty. That seems to be the hot phone (not smartphone) here in he UK at the moment.

[Fredster @ Jan 15th 2008 3:59PM]

So, Apple sold phones in 200 days as much as Nokia sells in 3 1/2 days.....No wonder Jobs is disappointed, the iPhone is a complete flop in Europe

[DelSource @ Jan 15th 2008 6:22PM]

Smartphone? When the rules don't support Apple, change the rules.

Reminds me of when the iPhone first came out and Apple-obsessed Wikipedians (for there are many) listed it as a smartphone. When someone pointed out that the article for smartphone indicated that the iPhone could NOT be classified as such, one of the editors hot-footed it over to that page and rewrote it sharpish. Hey presto, half an hour later the definition of smartphone was changed forever, and all attempts to revert were thwarted by a bunch of editors who also had........extensive Apple-editing histories.

It's why I now boycott iWikipedia (formerly O'Wikipedia) and hate fanboyism.

[poulan @ Jan 18th 2008 7:07PM]

The LG viewty is outselling the iphone in Europe and had sold out mainly because it is a better phone. Sure the iphone isn't available in all territories but one of the main reasons is that the viewty is available to all networks.

Check this out: http://www.dialaphone.co.uk/blog/?p=943

[jonathan ducrest @ Jan 22nd 2008 4:01PM]

What I would love to know is out how many iphone contracts does AT&T have? out of the 4 millions, how many are sold to people who will unlock them? everytime I am at an Apple store, someone from out of the U.S. is buying two at a time to take back home. I also would like to know how many people who bought an iphone are reselling it on ebay or craigslist. I bought it on June 29th and now went back to Blackberry, I learned a valuable lesson that sometimes, two gadgets instead of one are better. People are under the impression that they will pay a penalty if they cancel their iphone contract which is wrong, they only pay a penalty if they leave AT&T.