RSSOne million iPhone 3Gs sold? Not yet, says analyst
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published July 16, 2008, 2:17 PM
Apple confidently claimed this week it had already sold one million 3G iPhones. But if that's true, the buyer was AT&T, according to one analyst who predicts it will take another two weeks for end customers to have bought that many.
Apple's been criticized in the past for using sales to channel partners such as AT&T in sales reports. But in light of the activation disasters surrounding the 3G device, maybe it will take longer than usual for Apple's numbers to mesh with reality.
Despite a press release from Apple this week pronouncing sales of the phone at 1 million already, Gene Munster, a financial analyst at Piper Jaffray, has determined the actual amount of 3G iPhones sold as of Monday to measure less than 500,000.
From calls Munster placed to US stores last Friday, he figured out how many new phones were being activated each hour. From there, the analyst projected that 425,000 iPhones would have been sold over the weekend, and that sales to end users wouldn't hit the 1 million mark for another 17 days.
Even supposing the activation process for the 3G iPhone had been smoother last week than it actually was, Apple's press release does seem overly optimistic.
Meanwhile, previous press releases from Apple about other products and services have also reflected some interesting math. In April and again in June, for example, Apple announced that its iTunes music store has surpassed Wal-Mart in music sales, each time using only old survey results from the NPD Group's MusicWatch survey for January and February as the basis for those contentions.
Another irrelevant 'story' from another irrelevant 'journalist'.
Slow news day perhaps?
Every company uses the same methods to 'report' their sales figures. It's not news at all.
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Gene Munster got it wrong. On the other hand, some of the one million were sold to carriers, but not yet in end user's hands. There aren't any large pools of free stock because shipments were micromanaged. The end user sales number is somewhere in between. Many who queued at the weekend still didn't have one on Monday.
And about surpassing Walmart on music sales. Apple had to delay making the announcement because the iTunes store makes very large numbers of sales in January and February when Christmas iTunes gift cards are redeemed. Apple only asserted surpassing Walmart when it was clear that the lead would be sustained. January is when it first happened. April is when they were sure of themselves. Unlike a journalist, company officers can experience severe personal financial and criminal consequences if they allow false statements to be made.
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NEWS ALERT: Apple sues analyst!
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how's the sales of iPhone in the States?
cuz in Japan, they barely managed to sell the first batch, even including hiring lots of people to stand in line to buy them. Apple really needs to bring out more features or something, because as of right now, all those features exist in even those 1-2 yrs old 3G phones.
I'm not saying that the design is not cool. The design is damn cool compared to the phones they got here in Japan. That's a major plus.
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From what I've heard... I don't think they were bad but, they weren't even half of what they were for the original iPhone.
I agree with you. It reminds me of the original Motorolla Razr. It was a nice phone at the time but, it leaves you wanting more. I hadn't heard that Apple hired people to stand in line! I hate how far they go for their marketing practices...
For us here, I think the plan pricing is a big deal. You can get similar function with half of the money on other carriers. Especially with our economy in trouble at the moment, I don't think as many people will run out and buy such an expensive phone and cell plan. It's cool but, not that cool...
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Cite your proof/source on Apple hiring people.
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The car companies historically used to record cars as sold when they are sold to the dealers. Is this an accurate way to account for real sales? Have the car companies ever BS'd their real sales number by this method? I would like to know the real number so as to have some clue about the economy. Do people have the money to buy the next latest greatest or are they really as broke as other numbers might suggest. The governments numbers are almost useless
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I used to work in the car business. It'll tell you that the cars are on something called a "floor plan". The dealer pays a tiny amount of interest every day that the car is on the lot BUT, the dealer doesn't pay for the car until it sells. Used cars and parts are a different story. I also worked in retail and it was similar. If the product doesn't sell, (in retail) the company just ships it back to the manufacturer.
It's basically lying if they record the shipping numbers as sales!! Because it's such a gray area, they can reflect the numbers as "sales". The only truth is when the companies release their quarterly earnings reports. Actual profits don't lie and the reports are regulated by the SEC (if they're a public company). That's why this news is meaningless to investors. It's basically just a form of marketing and it's completely unregulated.
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There are a lot of ways to measure this. I am sure apple is correct, but so is this analyst. Given the servers being brought to their knees on friday, I would assume there were a lot of iphones sold.
The question is, how many iphones were made and send to stores, because that count right there will be a pretty good indicator what the case is, because well, their gone, all of them.
I just got my iphone 3g today, gotta love it! Worth every penny! Amazing little device, no doubt about it.
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How would they know anyway?
I suspect many are either still in line or haven't yet been able to activate their phones...
;-)
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LOL
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ATT corporate customers did not purchase at the stores. We had to go through the CRU channel and have them shipped from a special warehouse. Our company purchased iPhones for each employee and I know of another company that purchased 150 more than we did.
The CRU warehouse ran our of iPhones 2x. The first batch was gone by Friday noon and the second batch was gone Monday. We are still in line waiting for our phones when another shipment from Apple comes in and we purchased on Friday at 9am.
Calling the stores only gets you the count of phones soled to individual owned accounts.
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The other 20 countries don't count at all?
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Precisely.
What the hell is this 'analyst' smoking? :P
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But wait shipped should count as sold.
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Agreed, If it was sold in any shape or form regardless of being activated yet doesnt mean the phone has not been sold.
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