Are one in three iPhones sold being unlocked?
By Donald Melanson 
posted January 25th 2008 11:28AM
posted January 25th 2008 11:28AM
While it likely won't come as much of a surprise to those reading this, it seems that Apple's recently released iPhone sales numbers and AT&T's customer number don't exactly match up, leading those ever so insightful analysts to conclude that many of the phones are being sold with the sole intention of being unlocked. What is somewhat surprising, however, is exactly how many phones that might be. As MacWorld reports, Apple says it sold 3.7 million iPhones in 2007, while AT&T says it signed up about two million or so iPhone customers during the same time period. While those aforementioned analysts point out that Apple's numbers were boosted by 300,000-400,000 sales in Europe, and likely a few sold over the holidays that were yet to be activated, that still leaves over a million iPhones running free out there. If you do the math, that seems to suggest that roughly one in three iPhones sold are being unlocked although, obviously, we're not about to get a confirmation on that number from anyone.
Besides myself, I know 5 other iPhone users. Three of them have their iPhones unlocked and jailbreaked to the max. My wife and I remain humble and lowly AT&T users. So, I'm not at all surprised to see such figures.
What only 300k-400k iPhones sold in Europe over 2 months in the three wealthy and highly populated countries of the EU. That really looks like poor level of sales.
we're still waiting for the 1.1.2 4.6 OTB unlock! by then, you'll see the number escalate even higher :)
There's also the posibility that there is a whole crop-ton of iPhones sitting in AT&T stores and warehouses. These would be sales to Apple, since they've been sold to AT&T, but as AT&T hasn't pawned them off on consumers, they've yet to be activated.
Or someone's lying about their numbers.
Shameless self-promotion! BOOOOOOO!
Hey, be nice. It's a non-advertising site. There's no profit motive here!
If you look at the analyst numbers, it becomes clear that channel stuffing by Apple is unlikely. In the US, there are only two vendors: AT&T, and Apple. With the number of locations, each venue would have to have about 150 phones in inventory each. That's highly unlikely, mainly due to space concerns. 150 iPhones may not sound like a lot, but there's only so much inventory space.
Also, that mass of phones (about 1.3 million) would show up in Apple's receivables and the AT&T/Apple store inventory numbers. Apparently they do not. They're unlocked.
Apple just needed to make unlocking hard, but not too hard. They make money off the iPhone and the service, but they'll be happy to make money off just the iPhone as well.
now i've seen drop ship suppliers in hong kong selling completely unlocked iphones.
what i want to know is whether these iphones once started out being locked, and were unlocked by the drop ship company, or whether apple is supplying some unlocked iphones internationally?
for me.. 1 of the 3 iphones that i bought is locked.. other two are unlocked and are being used by my family in Nepal.
I'm sure there's more than a couple being sold on eBay!
2/3.7 approximately equals what, now?
I did see a lot of domains with variants of smashmyiphone in them.
Also, this article doesn;t take into account that there maybe many iPhone users that unlocked tehir iPhone because they want to use other applications, but are comofortable with AT&T.
M
jailbreaking and unlocking are two different things. You jailbreak to install third party apps and unlock to use a different carrier. Mmkay?
But this was obvious. I personally bought 17 iphones, out of which exactly ONE (mine) was activated with AT&T (and also unlocked and jailbroken). The rest were unlocked and taken to Spain, some for my family, some sold on ebay Spain (for a healthy profit). I would be shocked if there weren't people doing that at an industrial scale, taking hundreds or thousands of iphones to countries where it is not available. Heck, I saw yesterday a merchant offering them in NY's Chinatown, $625 unlocked.
I believe this is Apple's way of getting it both ways. They get a piece of the AT&T revenue AND they get to sell a bunch of "unlocked" phones. Wouldn't be surprised if they were secretly rejoicing. The other alternative business model would have been selling unlocked phones everywhere, so I believe this way they get AT&T money on top of it, without losing that much of the unlocked market, since whoever really wants an unlocked iphone can easily get one.
As we should all know by now, Apple is an expert on getting it both ways...
Most Apple stores have cracked down now on people buying iPhones for resale. I think they are limiting 3 per person. Since there is no cash sales of the iphone it is a bit harder to buy more than one without them noticing.
They do now. But they didn't when I bought my 17 (last october/november, before 1.1.2 came about). In fact, I remember while buying 2 at the Apple Store in Salem (NH, which has no sales tax), that some guy showed up, and the person who was helping me told me: "this guy comes and buys 5 iphones with cash every day". I wonder where all those iphones went :-)
I believe that since 1.1.2 can't be unlocked yet, they have relaxed their policies a bit, and I am sure that if you really insist on buying 4 or paying cash they'll let you.
When i was back in Asia this winter went to various phone stores and all their iPhones came from the US and are unlocked... so....
Much ado about nothing. The difference is likely due to existing AT&T customers who switched to the iPhone vs new customers activating an acount.
It says, activated phones, not new subscribers. Even if you were already an AT&T subscriber, you still have to activate the phone to use it on their network.
No they can't. Cash is legal tender
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender#In_the_United_States
Did you even read what you linked to? Geez...
"There is, however, no Federal statute mandating that a private business, a person or an organization must accept currency or coins as for payment for goods and/or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise."
AT&T is just using the same math when they calculate your monthly minutes. They always come up short.
How many don't work and cannot be activated becasue they are tied-up with Apple support?
Hmm.... I sold like 60 unlocked phone on eBay, and I know plenty of people who did much better then me. So I wouldn't be surprised if the figures are even higher. Also count for those who are with ATT but unlocked the phone in order to get the applications and travel abroad without stupid roaming charges!
To me it's ridiculous in the mobile phone industry to have phones which are exclusive to one provider. Imagine if you went to buy a TV and they told you it would only work with Viacom-owned channels. Or if your internet service provider said it would only work on Dell computers. You'd be, rightfully, outraged. Yet it's considered acceptable for service providers and manufacturers to collude when it comes to mobile phones.
What does that tell you, AT&T and Apple? We don't want to sign up with AT&T just to use your service, we want the damn iPhone and we'll do whatever we can to make it work on our service.
It's not even about AT&T.
What do these places have in common:
India, population 1.1Bn+
China, population 1.3Bn+
Japan, population 127M+
Europe without France, UK and Germany, pop 200M+
Russia, eastern europe, south east asia
Africa
South America
In all these places, the iPhone is not available officially from Apple. All these places have to buy unlocked phones. It's the VAST MAJORITY of the world's population. This is not about AT&T, it's about the iPhone simply not for sale there.
It's not even about AT&T.
What do these places have in common:
India, population 1.1Bn+
China, population 1.3Bn+
Japan, population 127M+
Europe without France, UK and Germany, pop 200M+
Russia, eastern europe, south east asia
Africa
South America
In all these places, the iPhone is not available officially from Apple. All these places have to buy unlocked phones. It's the VAST MAJORITY of the world's population. This is not about AT&T, it's about the iPhone simply not for sale there.
Duh. The world is a big place and Apple doesn't officially sell the iPhone anywhere but a handful of select places.
The rest of us gets unlocked phones.
Can you imagine how the sales numbers would explode if Apple just sold it to everyone who wants to buy it? My God...
Maybe these numbers will be a lesson to them in the future.
In all seriousness, any carrier evaluating the benefits of such a deal, and any device manufacturer weighing the actual benefits of an exclusive agreement will have to look at these numbers.
It also shows just how much people believe that their hardware is actually theirs.
I was just down in Mexico where iphones were everywhere. Every single one of them was unlocked. When I asked around in a store that was selling them the vendor said that he had bought almost 1000 iphones, had sold them all at $600 apiece and was getting in a new shippment of 1000 because his first had sold out so quickly. The've become a huge status symbol. This is happening in cities all over Mexico and I'm sure many other countries as well. My bet is those phones are not just sitting in the channel somewhere.
...and then you have guys like me who bought the iPhone, found out AT&T service in your area blew donkey balls, tried to get a refund on day 15 only to learn you got owned on day 14, and decided to keep it because it has the most elegant calendar of all smartphones on the market.
In Cyprus apple hasnt given anybody the rights to the iphone yet hundreds of ppl have hacked versions brought from America
i bought mine unlocked in a shop in hk. i asked them how well they sell and they said that they could sell about 10 units a day on the average. and that's just one shop in an entire building whose shops sells iphones. so we can say atleast a couple of thousand there.
I'd say Apple is cooking the books! There's no way one in three iPhones is unlocked...
I'd say Apple is cooking the books! There's no way one in three iPhones is unlocked...
I'd say Apple is cooking the books! There's no way one in three iPhones is unlocked...