RSS146,000 iPhones Activated in First Two Days
By Nate Mook | Published July 24, 2007, 12:10 PM
Although Apple won't announce its quarterly earnings that will include the first two days of iPhone sales until Wednesday, AT&T said Tuesday that it had activated 146,000 iPhones on the 29th and 30th of June, far below analyst expectations.
Initial figures estimated weekend iPhone sales to range from 300,000 to upwards of 700,000 - with the majority falling around 500,000. Unless most activations came Sunday July 1 or Monday July 2, which is unlikely, those lofty expectations were not met. Apple's stock fell 5% in early trading Tuesday due to the news.
But Apple has yet to make any announcement on iPhone sales numbers, and investors who relied on such assumptions were doing so without any official guidance. Still, that didn't stop Apple's stock from surging after the iPhone's launch on June 29.
Even with only 146,000 activations in two days, AT&T reported a 61% rise in net income and said 40% of iPhone customers were switchers from other wireless carriers. The company added 1.5 million subscribers in the quarter, up from first quarter growth of 1.2 million subscribers.
AT&T also said it has seen continued iPhone interest in July, with store traffic "above historical levels."
Apple will announce its quarterly earnings on Wednesday, which should include detailed iPhone sales figures and revenue stemming from the new product.
Many analysts reacted to the AT&T news with disappointment, but said said it was too early to read into the numbers with only two days of activation results reported. However, none has yet to explain how they could be so far off with their iPhone estimates.
"Piper Jaffrey initially estimated 200,00 would be sold. Monday after the launch, they raised the number to 500,000 (for no apparent reason). Other folks upped them reporting as high as 700,000," remarked JupiterResearch analyst Michael Gartenberg. "Well, if you called for 700,00, you were wrong but that doesn't mean Apple missed anything. There's a reason why making these types of calls is risky, this is what happens when you're wrong."
"The first two days mean nothing in the overall life of the product and the overall success of the iPhone won't rest on how well this particular model does," Gartenberg added. "The launch of the iPhone was the first move in what is likely to be a long game for Apple, trying to gauge the overall success based on two days of incomplete data is silly."
Reality always trumps hype.
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|Somehow this reminds of that movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
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|I recall a lot of people were experiencing activation issues the first few days plus you have to figure in those snagged up by people hoping to turn a profit on eBay probably never activated them.
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|wait if they sold over 500,000 in the first weekend and only had 1/5 of them activated .... what happened with the rest?
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|Any numbers posted up until Apple officially announces them are only speculation. The AT&T numbers do though point to a much lower than estimated sell through of the iPhone.
Have to wait for apple to release the numbers tomorrow before we will know
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|AT&T just announced their earning. 61% increase in wireless service, however disappointed iPhone sales.
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|Perhaps they ended up on ebay with people hoping to make some quick money.
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|How much did Apple pay Betanews to advertise the iPhone here.
I don't see the headline or news about iPhone crashing school networks.
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|The school apologized for accusing the iphone of doing that, in the end it was just a faulty engineering install of the network by Cisco. Doh!
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|You didn't see the headline because the iPhone wasn't the cause
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|That school was Duke.
Go Blue Devils!!!
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|I wonder if they track all of the people that returned their phones within the first two weeks. "We sold 300,000, but 150,000 returned them."
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|"146,000 iPhones Activated in First Two Days"
It's just like Apple to only highlight the first two days and not the first two weeks. That's probably because day 3 activations dropped to the thousands. And they need time to play with the numbers. Like I always said Apple is great at over hyping their sales and products.
But the iPhone on its own is very impressive:-)
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|nice troll.
The sales numbers were not released by Apple. This number is from AT&T. The reason it only covers two days is...AT&T's second quarter ended two days after the iPhone launch.
According to this article, Apple will be releasing its _first_ numbers relating to sales of the iPhone this Wednesday.
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|If there was good news, they would have given out more than two days worth of information. So, I remember Steve saying there would be 10 million sold this year.
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|Anyone tracked yet the number of car accidents caused by iPhone users? Since you need to look at the phone to make calls.
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|Yeah because only iPhone users get into car accidents while using their cell phones. And only iPhone users have to look at their cell phones when making calls.
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|Really? Bluetooth in a car works fine...no looking at the phone!
--->Since you need to look at the phone to make calls.
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|I must have imagined reading about how voice dialing was not one of the features on this version of the iPhone.
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|This number is likely considerably lower due to the activation problems they had. Had everything gone smootly, and nothing of that nature hardly ever does, the numbers would have been much higher. Mine, however, was activated within a few hours after I got it.
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|Hello fanboy.
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|I think the number are accurate, but you'll probaly find the other 400,000 on ebay
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|considerably lower? the activation issues affected between 9 and 13% of users that bought their phone within the first two days, that still put its under 170k, no where near 600k like they (and betanews) had reported during the short time period when every article on here was about the launch. the numbers would have not been much higher, maybe an additional 140k and that is almost double so beyond generous and thats still 2/5 short of what was reported.
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|"Apple's stock fell 5% in early trading Tuesday due to the news."
Everyone shat their pants again I see.
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|Yeah what is up with Apple Investors? sky is falling/we're number 1/sky is falling/We're number 1!
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|It's more like:
falling for apple marketing/realizing apple marketing lied/faling for apple marketing/realizing apple marketing lied
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