Bottom line: iPhone sales projections roll in [update]

Even IF the sales #ers are below ANY analysis….. WHO CARES @ this point this is gravy 4 AAPL. The REAL 3ers are going to 2B the Mac sales and more importantly the App Store sales… so many miss this very obvious revenue vehicle. You all think iTunes was a success…. This App Store is going to put music sales to SHAME.

iJah420 says RIM must not B2 happy.

Perhaps the limited release is due to the fact that Apple knew their systems could not manage any more activations. I will give them the benefit of the doubt even though I find the process of getting a phone both insulting and irritating. - Not the way to treat a cash customer. If there is a snag with my direct fulfillment order, I will cancel.

I couldn’t find one on Friday either. I ordered it as well through ATT and paid 15 bucks extra for rush shipping 3-5days… and now its on backorder… WTF??

1.1. Million

It really doesn’t matter how many phones Apple sells this weekend. What matters is how many phones they sell over the next 24 months. I think that number is going to be huge, like 50 million.

Apple would have sold 2 million 3G iPhones on lauch weekend, but all the AT&T and Apple stores sold out of 3G iPhones by Sunday morning. The 3G iPhone will continue to sell as consumer’s contracts with other cellphones run out and they renew with an iPhone. Download all the free apps and try them out. Download some of the Apps for less than $10, that’s cheap entertainment.

These sales figures represent highly wishful thinking.

All iPhones were sold out from all AT&T and Apple stores by Sunday morning. iPhone is the best smartphone. The critics can review all the imitations but they are wasting their time. All the competition have had 1 year to copy the iPhone and they haven’t come close to the old iPhone. How are they going to stand up against the 3G iPhone with the App store?
Download all the free Apps and see how cool the iPhone is. Then download some games like Super MonkeyBall. You’ll need to get used to the tilt control so don’t complain. It takes a few tries to get used to.

You can almost break the analysis up by how many were sold versus how many were activated. I think the number sold this weekend was closer to 1.5 million, though only about 1 million were acitvated in the United states. Based on reviews and recent analyst comments ( http://www.savingtoinvest.com/2008/07/apple-3g-iphone-update-and-analyst.html ) the phone should get over it’s initial hiccups and far exceed targets. Global figures (eg in Australia where it is alredy Monday) are already well ahead of estimates.

This is The Best Phone Ever Made
Period. End of Sentence.
As good as this phone is, I think the App Store will be the greatest feature ever added to ANY phone. It is super easy to use, and already soooo many cool applications available. I suspect in a few months there will be THOUSANDS of wonderful applications to choose from, making this phone relevent for a very, very, long time. I am already getting excited thinking about my next phone: iPhone 4G !

I went on Friday around 8:30am to an ATT store. The line was not very large at all. I got in line, found out the store had 40 phones. I was able to get one. They ran out of black 16G only had white ones left. Pick up a white one. It’s great! iTunes crashed around 9amEST. Everyone that was in line to get a phone, basically took it home to hook up to iTunes. I wasn’t able to get onto iTunes until 5pmEST to activate. I had to pull out the sim card and put it in my old phone so I would not be without a phone. Talking with others in line that came from other ATT stores, some of the smaller stores only had 20 phones. On Saturday, the ATT stores did not get any new shipments around here anywhere. All in all, with the final product in hand, it was worth it.

My girlfriend and I were two of the crazies that stood online for an iPhone for hours and actually got one. It was pretty crazy.I’m in NY and there were ups trucks just dropping them off just to get gobbled up. It seems like apple has made sure to create an enthusiastic demand

I am impressed at the capabilities of both iphones. However the handling of their release and associated issues has been very sub-par. Limiting the amount per to artificially increase the hype and attention. It gave Apple plenty of free press. All 3 stores I went too were out so I placed an order to receive one in 5-7 days with ATT. Sounded great at the time but today, sunday 2 days after the release, I get a backorder notice. I’ll give them the 5-7 days but not any longer before canceling the order. I want an iphone but I don’t NEED one.

I called our local Apple store yesterday afternoon (Saturday) and they had run out of stock at around noon, and had been turning people away all afternoon. They had just received a large shipment but the person I spoke with didn’t think it would last the weekend. I ran down to the store and a line was growing again. I was able to quickly buy a phone before the line moved out beyond the store again. The Apple staff was very efficient and activation literally took only a few seconds. The entire purchase/activation process couldn’t have taken longer than five or so minutes for me. I set up the phone at home and have been having a lot of fun using it since then. What an incredible device! The App Store is amazing, and it’s only the first weekend.

I’m convinced. I”m hopping on the Apple freight train. Forget the 90…240 by year end. Sorry for giving all you guys a bad time.

Math 101!!!
for my personal point of view
take in consideration aapl est for 08 is 10M I Phone, 6M alrerady sold; 4M to Go over 5 month left; if we consider that 4m phone diveded by 22 conutries come to be 181,819 x country…..i think 4m are already sold in this weekend alone 60k a day worldwide

everyone that regularly reads PED’s stuff knows that ol’ AAPLpie has been trying to get the “office pool” for first weekend sales going for a while now…i’ve been guessing 1 million since WWDC. wild card for me is lack of inventory…AAPL is smart and I think they are moving phones around on Sat/Sun based on responses at various locations on Friday so that they could balance sales as much as possible. it’s extremely hard to believe that they didn’t have at least a million phones available by launch, isn’t it? but i will say that selling 1 million phones in a weekend is an astounding thing to consider, so i hate talking about it too casually. good news is i’m no longer hearing about activation and itunes problems, so hopefully the worse is behind us there. does seem that AAPL underestimated demand though.

I’d definitely bet on a high number. Getting mine today (Sunday) I arrived at the store around 9:30, the line was halfway around the block. I waited for about 3 and a half hours to get mine, and while I was waiting the line grew even longer, to stretch about a block and a half (at the Soho Apple Store). They had ‘plenty of units’ available in 16GB and 8GB. Seeing as that, three days after the launch, there was still a four hour or so line, I would guess that a lot of units would be sold. However, Apple did have that activation issue, causing a lot of people trying to get it on Friday to be turned down, given a rain check, or asked to return. I’d say a solid 500,000 across the world is about accurate.

All I would like to add is that Apple, had pre-launch orders, and those order numbers are known. So Apple ran out of iPhones on the first launch weekend and they clearly did not want to repeat that. So add it up, the market apple is selling into is much larger than the first time. They did not want to run out of phones like they did the first time. The pre-launch inventory numbers can be found or estimated. Inventories are running out of the iPhone 3G. Didn’t Apple order something like 1.5 million iPhone 3Gs then later add another 500,000 to the order. Those numbers can be found.

I’m waiting to get one. As a manager within AT&T, we’re getting a pretty good employee offer the iPhone 3G. Better yet, no direct fulfillment. HA!

All I can add is that if Apple were to sell a million phones a month (clearly under their sales target this next year, and roughly what they achieved in the first 6 months iphone classic was on sale in the US, UK, France and Germany), they need to sell 250,000 per week (without taking into account launch bonus). And I expect that Apple is hoping to achieve 500,000/week on a chronic basis.

Further, given that the iphone 3G is now available in a number of large markets it was not last year (Japan, Australia, Italy, Canada), it seems inconceivable that FIRST weekend (half week) sales will not exceed 500,000. And 1 million seems reasonable.

How can you use the sales numbers (for projections) without considering the number of people turned away? For projection purposes, shouldn’t this number be added?

I went to an AT&T store, but they had no inventory. I have decided to wait a couple of weeks until our Apple store opens. But I would have purchased Friday.

Apple consider a sale is when products are loaded on a FEDEX/UPS truck at the back dock of their OEMs… (the oems are in China)….that’s how revenue is reported….

Regarding Apple’s “carrier partners”

What counts as a sale to Apple? When it’s rung up at the register or when the carriers take delivery of their shipment?

ex ped: Good question. Apple books sales to carriers when it ships them out the door. It books its own sales at the register.

These estimates are absurdly high.

These analysts needed to be in the trenches trying to get a phone, asking about inventory.

In my area, most AT&T stores only received 20 phones for the Friday launch and received 0 (zero) on Saturday. That is absurd.

Checks show some other stores received 40 on Friday, some high volume stores reported received 80. I’d therefore estimate the average phones DELIVERED by AT&T to be 40*1800 stores = 72,000.

Thats a far cry what the analyst prediction.

AT&T was driving most customers towards direct fulfillment where the phone is ordered. I don’t know if that counts as a sale when made or when delivered. AT&T will probably report it when ordered to make the numbers look better. A typical store here sold 20 on hand, and 50 Friday and 50 Saturday for a total of 120. They could have sold hundreds had they had them in stock.

Meanwhile Apple stores never ran out, but also could not sell very many because of a time consuming sales process unlike last year. Estimates I’ve heard of Apple sales in my area are ~500/store. Figuring 200 Apple stores that makes 100,000 from Apple.

Grand total for Friday and Saturday of 172,000.

Much worse than last years 270,000 in the US. But it makes sense. AT&T did not have any meaningful supply on hand. No online sales, length sales process limiting ability to sell at Apple stores unlike last year’s quick purchase and activate at home process.

I think the estimates are way too high. Based on my experience at the Apple Store, they sold 250 iPhones in the first 8 hours on Friday. The lines were long and they could have sold 1000 iPhones in the same time, but they can only sell them so fast since they must be activated. I don’t think the store can sell more than 50 iPhones an hour with this process and one Friday, the rate was much slower than this.

Also, Apple didn’t provide the AT&T stores with many phones. I first went to the local AT&T store and they were sold out in an hour and the crowd had to go elsewhere (like me, to the Apple store). If that AT&T store had gotten more iPhones, they could have sold them.

Maybe the sales process is smoother in other countries or they have enough retail outlets so that people who want them can get them without having to wait 8 hours in line, but in the US, I believe that the stores are not set up well enough to sell at the rate some analysts are speculating.

Defiantly over a million for US sales. @ Northpark Mall in Dallas they were selling 120 phones per hour and the line stayed consistent @ 200 people. The att stores didn’t have the same quantity as apple stores and the apple stores didn’t run out until late in the day. I think the apple stores will sell 500,000+ this weekend.

Looking good in all neighborhoods! World-wide sales through the roof. RIMM only wishes it had probelems like this!

The borrom line is sales are tremendous. Who gives a hoot abuot the petty issues people are complaining abouit, get ovber it. Fact is sales are off the charts and this is just the start. Wait until China, Hong Kong, Russia, and a few others weigh in!

And the difference this year is that they are selling in 22 different countries. US Sales may not be as great as last years (I think it will, but wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t), but International sales will be off the charts. There were 200K pre orders in Spain and 300K in Australia (or the other way around, not sure). Either way, with 22 countries launching, and these other countries have not been able to legally get their hands on the iPhone like US residents, the sales there should be huge. Especially since thier economies are not hurting as badly as ours. Plus, the people that buy Apple iPhones aren’t as affected by the slowing economy - they’re affected by it, but just not enough to not buy their iPhone. I’m with Abramsky - Over 1 M easily.