Apple sells 1 million iPhone 3Gs in first weekend
Despite widespread activation problems, Apple said Monday that it sold its one millionth iPhone 3G on Sunday, just three days after the new handset launched worldwide on Friday, July 11.
"iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend," said Apple chief executive Steve Jobs.
Last year, Apple managed to sell just 270,000 iPhones during the first two days. Although the Cupertino-based electronics maker did not release a three day tally for first-generation iPhone sales, it would take the company nearly two and a half months to sell its one millionth unit.
"It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world," Jobs added.
Unlike last year when opening weekend iPhone sales took place exclusively in the United States, this year's roll-out was helped by simultaneous launches in 20 additional countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.
The three day sales total is sure to send a shiver down the spines of rival handset makers and is particularly impressive given widespread activation issues that plagued the launch from the get-go, at times slowing sales and activations to a snail's pace.
Although the new handset went on sale at 8:00 a.m. Friday morning, Apple retail stores around the country were still battling long lines -- sometimes hundreds of customers deep -- in the late evening hours on Saturday and Sunday morning. There was still a line some 60 customers long at Apple's flagship shop on Fifth Ave in Manhattan early Monday morning.
Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co., had his team observe the weekend launch by visiting Apple and AT&T retail stores in the New York and Minneapolis area. He roughly estimated early Monday morning that Apple sold just 425,000 units worldwide during the weekend, and that it would take the company another two weeks before it could hit the 1 million mark.
One analyst was spot on in his estimates for opening weekend sales, however. Mike Abramsky with RBC Capital Markets issued a research report to clients on Friday in which he said that pent up demand, expanded distribution, and lower pricing would push shipments of over 1 million iPhone 3Gs during the first weekend -- a more than fourfold increase over the previous year.
"We expect Apple to ship 5.1 million units in [the three-month period] after launch and 6.5 million 3G phones" in the December quarter, he said.
Shares of Apple rose $4.03 or more than 2.3 percent to $176.61 in early morning trading on the Nasdaq stock market.
"iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend," said Apple chief executive Steve Jobs.
Last year, Apple managed to sell just 270,000 iPhones during the first two days. Although the Cupertino-based electronics maker did not release a three day tally for first-generation iPhone sales, it would take the company nearly two and a half months to sell its one millionth unit.
"It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world," Jobs added.
Unlike last year when opening weekend iPhone sales took place exclusively in the United States, this year's roll-out was helped by simultaneous launches in 20 additional countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.
The three day sales total is sure to send a shiver down the spines of rival handset makers and is particularly impressive given widespread activation issues that plagued the launch from the get-go, at times slowing sales and activations to a snail's pace.
Although the new handset went on sale at 8:00 a.m. Friday morning, Apple retail stores around the country were still battling long lines -- sometimes hundreds of customers deep -- in the late evening hours on Saturday and Sunday morning. There was still a line some 60 customers long at Apple's flagship shop on Fifth Ave in Manhattan early Monday morning.
Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray & Co., had his team observe the weekend launch by visiting Apple and AT&T retail stores in the New York and Minneapolis area. He roughly estimated early Monday morning that Apple sold just 425,000 units worldwide during the weekend, and that it would take the company another two weeks before it could hit the 1 million mark.
One analyst was spot on in his estimates for opening weekend sales, however. Mike Abramsky with RBC Capital Markets issued a research report to clients on Friday in which he said that pent up demand, expanded distribution, and lower pricing would push shipments of over 1 million iPhone 3Gs during the first weekend -- a more than fourfold increase over the previous year.
"We expect Apple to ship 5.1 million units in [the three-month period] after launch and 6.5 million 3G phones" in the December quarter, he said.
Shares of Apple rose $4.03 or more than 2.3 percent to $176.61 in early morning trading on the Nasdaq stock market.
Comments
Apple said Monday that it sold its one millionth iPhone 3G on Sunday, just three days after its launch on Friday, July 11.
iPhone 3G is now available in 21 countries -- Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the US -- and will go on sale in France on July 17.
"iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world."
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
I guess the "WOW" really does start now...
I phoned Apple and the best they can do is tell me some one will contact me in 48 hours. I asked to speak to someone who could let me pay there and then over the phone but was told there is no such ability.
By pure coincidence, a friend in France just e-mailed me to tell me he is getting a server error when he tries to update his dot Mac/ MobileMe account!
Has anyone else seen this?
Meanwhile talking of MobileMe ... every web site I have made with iWeb where I used the map widget is currently showing Apple's MobileMe web page not the previously showing interactive Google Map! Oh and all Google ads that were working fail to show up if you some much as change a single thing on the site and upload!
Come on Apple what the heck is going on??
They would have sold a lot more if there were enough iPhones in Europe...
Our entire state (PA) is out of iPhones in the Apple Stores, and AT&T ran out on Friday in Philadelphia, and doesn't know when they are being resupplied. I have to buy one at an ATT store since I have a FAN discount, so I am out of luck for a while.
I know a lot of people who wanted to buy one this weekend but couldn't.
If they hadn't constrained AT&Ts numbers of phones so badly, and had problems with activation on Friday, they would have done much better opening numbers.
I realize I will get one before Europe though, so I am not complaining too much.
Wait until China's telecoms deal, we will probably see a million per day.
This is less impressive than it sounds. If you take the sales on a per-location basis then the numbers sound a bit more reasonable. Also Apple had greater supply problems with the first release. This time they had a month or more to build up inventory.
Is that why most places have sold out of the 3G while there were plenty of phones to go around with the initial release?
Anyone else found that MobileMe kills their iPhone VERY quickly? I seem to be luck to get 1/2 a day out of it (although the games I've downloaded may have something to do with it). It seems (from the sound coming out of my car radio) that the iPhone is constantly connected to the MobileMe server when push is activated. I would have thought it would have been better to give each iPhone a specific IP address, which may change, at which point the iPhone can update the MobileMe server. Would negate the need to constantly talk to the MobileMe server though.
That's actually what I always thought Push meant, but I've been proven wrong by these battery life issues. I don't know if it's an issue with Apple's implementation or just the Push standard itself. It doesn't seem like blackberries have a similar issue with push, but it might be that they've setup their own way of doing things, likely similar to the method you mentioned, via their proprietary system.
Turning off push for mail(which I don't use) seems to have helped a little, though.
At 7m sold already, 3m million over the next 5 months seems like it will be a breeze.
T
Wait until China's telecoms deal, we will probably see a million per day.
Yeah......
Supposely, Apple ordered at least 15M iPhone 3G's for 2008. Forget about that "10M by end of 2008" number. Now the question is whether they can sell 15M, or total 21M by the end of 08.
If they hadn't constrained AT&Ts numbers of phones so badly, and had problems with activation on Friday, they would have done much better opening numbers.
Despite those issues, it still sounds like they sold pretty much every iPhone they had. Even without those issues, they would have sold about the same, the main constraint is that there simply weren't more iPhones built and ready to sell.
I don't think it will matter much in the long run as long as they can meet demand fairly soon, the people who couldn't get one right away will mostly get ones when they become available.
This is less impressive than it sounds. If you take the sales on a per-location basis then the numbers sound a bit more reasonable. Also Apple had greater supply problems with the first release. This time they had a month or more to build up inventory.
I think one doesn't have to look any further than the greatly increased size of the addressable market (roughly four times that of the iPhone 1.0 market) for explanation of the increased sales.
AFAIK there were no supply problems with iPhone 1.0 until about a week or so after launch though. It seems to me that supply problems are actually *greater* this time, in that iPhone 2.0 is sold out in many markets, and was on the very first day in some.
Forget about that "10M by end of 2008" number.
Forget it all right...because it's not what apple ever said. They said 2008M in calendar year 2008, putting them at a total of 14-15 million by the end of the year.
Apple had a conservative sales projection of 10m iphone (both models) by end of 2008.
At 7m sold already, 3m million over the next 5 months seems like it will be a breeze.
Do you mean 10m IN 2008? That's what they said.
If they're at 7M so far, what's the total so far for just 2008 sales?
"It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world," Jobs added.
Unlike last year when opening weekend iPhone sales took place exclusively in the United States, this year's roll-out was helped by simultaneous launches in 20 addition countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.
Not to rain on anyone's parade but...
1,000,000 iPhones divided into 21 countries averages out to just 47,619.05 iPhones per country (in a perfect world, I know)... so last year's original iPhone launch of 270,000 iPhones in the first two days overwhelms the response for 3G iPhones.
Although, before I get slammed for looking at it this way, it would have been interesting to see what the actual total number of 3G iPhones sold could have been if A) they didn't have to deal with the early issues of non-activation from iTunes bogging the retail outlets down and
But, congrats to Apple all the same!
The real "WOW" factor would have been if Apple could have sold 270,000 iPhones 3G in three days in all countries. 270,000 x 21 = 5,670,000 iPhones... Wow!
I guess the "WOW" really does start now...
Really? come on, the original iPhone was sold only on AT&T. The iPhone 3G was sold on many many more mobile operators and not just the american market. Didn't you realize that USA is just a small fraction of the world? Yes there is a world outside united states. A world who invented GSM and uses GSM since over 15 years and which has fantastic devices from fantastic other vendors. That market is way bigger. Apple should have sold like 30 million units in the first week if they did it right (like abandon carrier lock, add full MMS, WAP and Bluetooth support).
The number of hacked iPhone 2G phones in my country is still 10 times bigger than the number of carrier locked iPhone 3G phones. Not a surprise to me.
Maybe if it launched in 21 countries with populations roughly equivalent to the US your argument would come close to making any sense.
Not to rain on anyone's parade but...
1,000,000 iPhones divided into 21 countries averages out to just 47,619.05 iPhones per country (in a perfect world, I know)... so last year's original iPhone launch of 270,000 iPhones in the first two days overwhelms the response for 3G iPhones.
Although, before I get slammed for looking at it this way, it would have been interesting to see what the actual total number of 3G iPhones sold could have been if A) they didn't have to deal with the early issues of non-activation from iTunes bogging the retail outlets down and
But, congrats to Apple all the same!
The real "WOW" factor would have been if Apple could have sold 270,000 iPhones 3G in three days in all countries. 270,000 x 21 = 5,670,000 iPhones... Wow!