iPhone’s Q3 sales second only to Blackberry in U.S.
Here are two pictures worth a couple thousand words. They’re from a study commissioned by Symbian (jointly owned by Nokia, Ericsson, Sony Ericsson, Panasonic, Siemens and Samsung), but published so quietly that we might never had heard about it if Daniel Eran Dilger of Roughly Drafted had not dug it out.
What the study shows, among other things, is that, in its first full quarter of sales, Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone outsold all the smartphones in the North American market except for RIM’s (RIMM) Blackberry. That puts it ahead of the entire field of devices running Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows Mobile, Linux or Palm OS.
As Dilger puts it, the iPhone’s debut at second place is particularly noteworthy because …
… the iPhone was only being sold in the US, and is only available through AT&T; all of the other mobile platforms are available to Sprint, Verizon Wireless, and T-Mobile as well as AT&T. The iPhone wasn’t available in the significant markets of Canada and Mexico, along with parts of the US that AT&T does not service, including much of Vermont, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska.
For more analysis of the study and what it means for Microsoft, Symbian and beleaguered Palm (PALM), see Roughly Drafted’s full report here.
Maddauwg, you couldn’t possibly be more wrong than you are. You keep up your wishfull thinking though if it makes you happy.
bottom line…
it was only the hype and the limited number of people who bought into it that pushed the iphone to make the sales it did.
this will not last as the iphone is a niche product from a niche company that will garner no more than 2-3% of the market….PERIOD.
lets come back in a year and review the previous 4Qs….you’ll notice the iphone lost its comparable sales to the rest of the market….no more niche buyers, only us normal consumers that don’t over pay for technology that is readily available for 1/4th the cost.
Philip, I had to double-check to see if your name was on this piece because there didn’t seem to be any fuddy doom-and-gloom or negative spin on how this news is actually bad for Apple…
Aww, sorry, just having a little fun with ya :-)
I think it’s also pretty amazing that no single model of Blackberry outsold the iPhone in North America, only the entire Blackberry family of products, and not by much. Even among regular cell phones and freebies, the iPhone was only outsold by three models in the US.
I think we’ll be able to look back at 2007 as the tipping point for Apple. Their iPod dominance remains unchallenged, the iPhone is scaling past Apple’s own projections, and the Mac is increasing market share, which is almost inconceivable, considering what they’re up against in the corporate or enterprise markets. I’ve written more about Apple’s improbable resurgence here.
What does this really show? The MSFT OS smartphones appear to have sold about as well as the iPhone in N. Amer. in Q3. The static numbers aren’t that important anyway, it’s the trend. Let’s see the iPhone sustain sales after the initial hype - this isn’t an iPod after all, it’s an expensive, unsubsidized device with a significant service contract commitment attached to it. All this proves is that the fanboys lapped up the iPhone in its initial release. The trends for the next couple of quarters are much more important than the initial hype. Does it even belong in the Smartphone category? Maybe on price alone, but that’s about it.
Of course, if you’d have been reading mobile phone blogs you’d have known all about that report - for example, http://mobilephonedevelopment.com/archives/507
Eh, take with a grain of salt. I’d prefer to see a trend here rather than a raw number. The real question is who did they take market share from?
I don’t think you are reading the chart correctly. This chart shows Symbian as the, far and away, leader and Apple in last place. Please review the chart and correct.
ex ped: I think you’re looking at worldwide sales in the first chart. The second chart breaks it down by region and shows Apple in second place in the N. American market.
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Silicon Valley veterans like to joke that Steve Jobs must be surrounded by a reality distortion field; if you get too close to him, you start to believe what he's saying. Thanks to the success of the iPod, the launch of the iPhone and the renewed interest in the Mac, Apple has made believers out of millions of customers - and made a lot of investors rich. But Philip Elmer-DeWitt believes that an ounce of skepticism never hurts when writing about the company. He should know. He's been covering Apple - and watching Steve Jobs operate - since 1982, first for Time Magazine, then for Business 2.0, and now for Fortune.
Hey maddawg..
Let’s come back in a year indeed and see how the iPhone is doing. I’d love to see you come back here and have the fortitude to admit you were woefully wrong.
If you mean that Apple will have 2-3% of the overall cell phone market (1B phones per year), then you are correct. If you think the iPhone will have only 2-3% of the smartphone market, you are insane. Apple will have over 40% of the North American smartphone market by this time next year. RIM will be #2. Palm will be sold or dead.
David Dugan