The iPhones of Equatorial Guinea

Does it strike anyone as odd that ‘rogue dealers’ can actually get their hands on something like 25% of Apple’s total production? Surely this has to be going on with tacit approval from apple. They know the serial numbers of the units that are activated on supported networks, so they could easily look for patterns among the ones that are not yet activated and determine which dealers have a normal percentage of unactivated stock and which ones have a huge percentage of unactivated stock because they’re selling them abroad.

Either Apple knows where these sales are destined when they sell them, or they’re deliberately not looking too hard to work it out after the fact. (Remarkably like the international trade in arms, actually!)

Well, iphones will sell like hot cakes in India if available. Currently the $400 iphone is being sold here for $600. If Apple could sell it for $500, they would make a killing. The concept of phones locked to networks is not accepted here, unless the handset cost is subsidised.

Fascinating. One wonders, in this era of low airline fares and low value of the dollar, how many of the iPhones that are being purchased in the U.S. are headed to places where Apple is selling phones at a higher foreign cost than the discounted cost they may be purchased at in the US. It may be pretty substantial based upon these statistics.

Bolivia, a third-world country is not listed. (adding the list: South Korea, Lithuania, Taiwan, Malta, Iran and Bolivia)

Also how many of those in Eq. Guinea are being used by US oil workers or other expats

For your information : You can cross Iran from your list. There are plenty of iPhones in Iran which run perfectly well on its GSM (2G) network.

Isn’t Equatorial Guines a country where the ruler is some form of deity or at least a direct agent of God? Does Steve Jobs have to die before he is beatified there?

This is very interesting. I am a US worker currently living in W. Africa (Nigeria). I’ve definitely seen Iphones working here. However, the takeaway US computer MFRs need to get is that there is a market for their products. The key is not making new technologies, but making existing ones affordable. Cell phone & Smart phone growth has been explosive because you can buy a basic cell phone for $30 and it costs about <15 cent/min for prepaid. In a place where a 768 kbps ADSL line costs ~$400usd /mo, the future belongs to guy who makes a simple device you can use as your primary communication, internet & entertainment device.

print out this article w/ comments .
pin it up ..
wait 5 yrs .
how will the bashers spin it . when its really rocking. it is already the gold standard of phones .

apple owns all the patents ..

peace

lostplay

Why so hot in these other countries? One reason is that in many countries outside the US, it is NOT common to have a home desktop or laptop computer. They access the net on their phones -this is as true in Japan as in a third-world place. So the iPhone is a near ideal solution when you already expect the phone to be the internet. Americans look at internet on the phone and wonder why anyone would do that when they have a perfectly good computer at home or work, and THAT is entirely the point. No PC? No prob. Here’s the internet on your phone. Done.

To Dan of San Mateo

Don’t under estimate Steve Jobs. If Apple were to sell their iPhone unlocked, then they would have to support it world wide. Even in those countries very few actual users. By selling the iPhone locked, Apple only has to support it in the country they were officailly released in. All those users in other countries bought an iPhone and used a third party hack to unlock it. By doing this, Apple no longer has to support it (Except for hardware failure not related to the hack.) And Apple still got the money from selling those iPhones. Apple sold over half a million iPhones that wouldn’t have been sold if it weren’t for the hack and the EDGE network in those countries (that the buyers wants to connect to). The buyers of these iPhones wouldn’t have bought an iPhone otherwise. Profit wise, this is not really an issue with Apple. As these are extra iPhones sold. It becomes a problem if there’s a shortage of iPhones. Like we saw before the xMas season. Then Apple stands to lose out if there’s not enough iPhones for the buyers that wants to connect to one of their supported carriers. These iPhones are more profitable. Apple doesn’t need to dominate the whole cell phone market. They only need to dominate the smart phone market. As the buyers in this market don’t mind spending $400 and above for a phone.

Makes you wonder why iphones are being used in the ” non- sanctioned” territories that are the rest of the world. Locking up of phones and tying them to specific carriers seems to be the way it is done in America .If only Iphone were sold like any other phones in the rest of the world . Pity , I own AAPL shares and I don’t use a computer that is not a Mac. My country ranks 7 on the quaint list.

To Dan of Boston

Apple goal to to have 1% of the world market. This after selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. Again folks like you don’t see the bigger picture. Is not the .2% of USA shares that matters. What matters is that it’s 20% of the smart phone market. The segment of the market that is very profitable. This only after 6 months and 1 model of of iPhone. Why don’t you ask Motorola hows having all those USA market share doing for them.

Apple may only have about 7% of the computer market, for now. But it’s in the low double digit of the laptop market. And when you consider that nearly every Mac sells for $1000.00 and above. Those 7% market share is very profitable. Dell and HP can fight all they want for the $600.00 and under PC market just for the bragging rights of have more market shares. There’s hardly any money to be made in that segment of the market.

Dan in Boston:

That .20% is not market share of cell phones. That is the percentage of ALL internet surfers, including other smart phones as well as traditional computers. One person in every 500 web surfers is on an iPhone. Tell me that doesn’t rock, and if you do tell me so, then you are a fool.

Thompson

Usage share in the USA = 0.20%. Keep bragging about that 2% share in Equatorial New Guinea fanboys. Yet another example where Apple’s press far outweighs its actual market share or sales. The cult would have you believe that AAPL is poised to take over the world. Of course they’ve been saying the same thing for 20 years.

I’m Maltese and heard of a number of iPhones in use here. They did not show up in the survey because of the high cost of data transfer here.

Eric Savitz, and a boy named ‘Toni’ are trying to bust Apple’s stock price regarding iPhones. Don’t do their homework… Rumor guy, wed to a non-journalist…

http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/02/02/the-iphones-of-equatorial-guinea/

Hi I didn’t find a trackback for this post, so if anyone’s interested, here’s the link to the short post I wrote on it: http://grouet.wordpress.com/2008/02/03/why-equatorial-guinea-tops-the-list-of-iphone-using-countries/

Toni’s possible point-of-view: “Those countries don’t have Apple stores, bad for Apple sell the stock”, “They will copy the iPhone and make their own, bad for Apple, sell the stock.” “Too many countries for Apple to keep up with, bad for Apple, sell the stock.” If Apple screws up they deserve the critics but these assholes have been looking for anything bad to write about Apple. Lets flood their Emails with a billion messages, to those that are negative with no justification at all.

iPhones are perfect for third world countries for different reasons than for America and they are not that much more expensive than other unsubsidized smartphones. Mobile penetration in Africa and India is much more than double landline penetration so its a good way to have web access with iPhone. It’s kinda obvious to anyone who has traveled there! I carried 10 iPhones on my last visit there in November.

GDP/Capita has nothing to do with it, EDGE has been around in most poor countries’ networks for years, and now their customers can use it for something. Steve Jobs is an idiot for thinking he understands the global mobile business.

Sure they are all unlocked iPhone.

But, the bashers will state that the figures are from people in the 4 countrymen with authorized iPhones traveling to those countries.

I can’t understand Tony Scconaghi’s point of view. i think he is looking for the half empty glass instead of the half full glass…Apple has an extraordinary product, compared with competition, that generates a huge pull movement form consumers all around the world. All these consumers are not only potential customers for an official carrier in theri country but also excellent prospects for other Apple products..they are surely living a wonderful consumer experience considering the risk the take using a product subject to be “blocked” via internet…by the way loosing their +u$s500 investment…

Yes it is, I’d like to see some reaction from the AAPL bashers of the blogosphere!

i can’t wait to see how the analysts like Toni Sacconaghi try to somehow spin this into a negative. “apple’s missing out on revenues from carriers” blah, blah, blah.

they’re selling iphones every-freaking-where and there’s nothing negative about it, whether they’re extorting carriers or not

Very interesting.
Thomas a. Gaughan