Apple building stockpile of 3 million iPhones for launch?

[AppleInsider]

Apple, historically under-stocked and overwhelmed when it comes to high-profile product launches, may have a surprise up its sleeve come June 29th -- the day it plans to revolutionize the cell phone industry.

If sources cozying up to BusinessWeek's Peter Burrows are earnest, there are about 3 million reasons to believe that every iPhone line waiter will walk away from an AT&T or Apple retail store later this month clenching what they came for.

"Still, Apple will need to execute flawlessly. In units built and shipped, the iPhone launch will dwarf anything Apple has attempted," Burrows wrote. "It plans to have 3 million iPhones ready for sale on June 29, two sources say."

As the report notes, the iPod wasn't an immediate hit when it first came to market back in 2001. Although the iconic digital music players have now sold in excess of 100 million, Apple had years to ramp up production.

"Jobs did so expertly, often creating a sense of scarcity by running slightly short of demand," Burrows implies. "With all the buildup over the iPhone, pumping up demand will be the least of his concerns."

The BusinessWeek reporter suggests the Apple co-founder, having driven demand to ridiculous levels, is now poised to cash in on all the hoopla with a blockbuster day-one.

Of course, that would mean that manufacturing ramp has been in full swing for some time and that those analyst reports of "less than 40" iPhones per AT&T store were based on cleverly-crafted misinformation.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[SpamSandwich]

AAPL is dropping today... could the big boys be cashing out early?

[BlackSummerNight]

That's a lofty goal. I hope they meet it, just to make the competition set up.

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

AAPL is dropping today... could the big boys be cashing out early?

[audiopollution]

Originally Posted by SpamSandwich

AAPL is dropping today... could the big boys be cashing out early?

AAPL is still up, over yesterday ... just not the $4.00 that it was earlier.

[Ireland]

Curious, how many cellphone users in the US?

I know Apple sold 1,000,000 1G nanos in 17 days, but 3,000,000 iPhones for the US at launch just seems a bit ridiculous to me. 3,000,000 3G iPhones in October for Europe would however make sense. Apple is aiming for 10,000,000 iPhones in 2008, I personally wouldn't be surprised if that was more towards 30,000,000 worldwide for 2008. A great launch surprise would be if the storage was 8 and 16Gig though.

[Mr. H]

I wonder - is meeting initial demand actually in Apple's interest? Would it generate more buzz if they sold out quickly and the waiting lists were long? I guess in the long run it doesn't make much difference.

[Eric1285]

Originally Posted by Mr. H

I wonder - is meeting initial demand actually in Apple's interest? Would it generate more buzz if they sold out quickly and the waiting lists were long? I guess in the long run it doesn't make much difference.

I doubt they'll have 3 million units. ML reported that they would only have 200k-300k at launch.

[Go Banana]

I heard from an AT&T henchmen that they're going to have a billion units ready for launch and are expecting to sell out in a matter of seconds.

That makes me wonder... has there ever been a billion units of anything, ever, sold? That would be like 16% of humans buying a product. Serious market share!

[audiopollution]

Originally Posted by Go Banana

That makes me wonder... has there ever been a billion units of anything, ever, sold? That would be like 16% of humans buying a product. Serious market share!

McDonalds Hamburgers.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by audiopollution

McDonalds Hamburgers.

And Burgerkings', and I'd say a few makes of golf ball too.

[McHuman]

Originally Posted by Go Banana

I heard from an AT&T henchmen that they're going to have a billion units ready for launch and are expecting to sell out in a matter of seconds.

That makes me wonder... has there ever been a billion units of anything, ever, sold? That would be like 16% of humans buying a product. Serious market share!

Water.

[BlackSummerNight]

**replied to wrong post**

[BlackSummerNight]

I hope you told this guy you wasn't born yesterday. A billion units buit up.

Originally Posted by Go Banana

I heard from an AT&T henchmen that they're going to have a billion units ready for launch and are expecting to sell out in a matter of seconds.

That makes me wonder... has there ever been a billion units of anything, ever, sold? That would be like 16% of humans buying a product. Serious market share!

[sigs21]

Originally Posted by Mr. H

I wonder - is meeting initial demand actually in Apple's interest? Would it generate more buzz if they sold out quickly and the waiting lists were long? I guess in the long run it doesn't make much difference.

I think in this case, it would be better for them to have them on hand then not.. PS3 were hot at xmas but once the buzz that they are not around wore off.. who wants one.. (makes one helluva good blu ray player) to bad stevie did not add a blu ray to apple tv

[Wings]

Just think if they moved a million units on day one (and if they have them, they will). That would be over a half billion dollars changing hands all for a little white plastic box that makes phone calls.

[audiopollution]

Originally Posted by Wings

Just think if they moved a million units on day one (and if they have them, they will). That would be over a half billion dollars changing hands all for a little white plastic box that makes phone calls.

It would be especially amazing, as the iPhone is black (and chrome).

[EagerDragon]

AT&T network crashes, no customer is able to use their phones.
Problem seems to originate from all the bandwidth being used by the new 3,000,000 iPhones that were activated at over 2000 Apple & AT&T stores.

[Zweben]

Originally Posted by Wings

Just think if they moved a million units on day one (and if they have them, they will). That would be over a half billion dollars changing hands all for a little white plastic box that makes phone calls.

White plastic?

It's not white plastic, it's metal.

(beaten to it)

[melgross]

Originally Posted by audiopollution

AAPL is still up, over yesterday ... just not the $4.00 that it was earlier.

It's 124.069 at closing, which was a few moments ago, up 0.4290.
A high of 127.61.

All the markets were down. NASD down 45.80.

That's the main reason the price wouldn't hold.

MSFT down 0.67 to 29.62.

Dell down 0.36 to 26.99.

[EruIthildur]

Originally Posted by EagerDragon

AT&T network crashes, no customer is able to use their phones.
Problem seems to originate from all the bandwidth being used by the new 3,000,000 iPhones that were activated at over 2000 Apple & AT&T stores.

Not to mention everyone's btching about the internet running slow with all the new heavy users...

[-dF]

Originally Posted by Ireland

A great launch surprise would be if the storage was 8 and 16Gig though.

That would be glorious.

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by EruIthildur

Not to mention everyone's btching about the internet running slow with all the new heavy users...

Do you mean the world wide web......

I know, I know..... irresponsible.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

Do you mean the world wide web......

I know, I know..... irresponsible.

Shameless.

[sigs21]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

Do you mean the world wide web......

I know, I know..... irresponsible.

Does the 3mil include the ones that Steve is hording for ebay...

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by -dF

That would be glorious.

I have a hunch.

[Ireland]

Originally Posted by sigs21

Does the 3mil include the ones that Steve is hording for ebay...

What?

[anantksundaram]

Originally Posted by melgross

Shameless.

I thought that character trait was a pre-requisite to signing up!?

[desarc]

did you hear that everyone? especially those of you in Connecticut - there WILL BE 3 MILLION units on day one.
there is NO NEED for you to go to the apple store at opening and stand in line. just go after work. i don't want to have to wait behind all of you in the morning. relax, they'll be there. no worries! i'll tell you how it is during the day and you can pick one up on your way home. there will be PLENTY of them.

[EruIthildur]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

Do you mean the world wide web......

I know, I know..... irresponsible.

Nope. :P I mean the internet as defined in the dictionary... See, the iPhone uses more than just the WWW. It has mail too...

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/internet

A system connecting computers around the world using TCP/IP, which stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, a set of standards for transmitting and receiving digital data. The Internet consists primarily of the collection of billions of interconnected webpages that are transferred using HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), and are collectively known as the World Wide Web. The Internet also uses FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to transfer files, and SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) to transfer e-mail.

[melgross]

Originally Posted by anantksundaram

I thought that character trait was a pre-requisite to signing up!?

Yeah, well, we are pretty Zonked here.

Just fall in line.

[SpamSandwich]

Originally Posted by desarc

did you hear that everyone? especially those of you in Connecticut - there WILL BE 3 MILLION units on day one.
there is NO NEED for you to go to the apple store at opening and stand in line. just go after work. i don't want to have to wait behind all of you in the morning. relax, they'll be there. no worries! i'll tell you how it is during the day and you can pick one up on your way home. there will be PLENTY of them.

Ridiculous! Of course you must wait in line! And right after purchasing said iPhone, you must rush to your local movie theater to see Steve Jobs'... er, Disney+Pixar's Ratatouille!

Have you gone completely mad, man?!

[Mr. H]

Originally Posted by Eric1285

I doubt they'll have 3 million units. ML reported that they would only have 200k-300k at launch.

Indeed. The report does seem a bit suspect. If Apple are expecting to sell 10 million units in 18 months, would they really make 3 million for launch?

[Eric1285]

Originally Posted by desarc

did you hear that everyone? especially those of you in Connecticut - there WILL BE 3 MILLION units on day one.
there is NO NEED for you to go to the apple store at opening and stand in line. just go after work. i don't want to have to wait behind all of you in the morning. relax, they'll be there. no worries! i'll tell you how it is during the day and you can pick one up on your way home. there will be PLENTY of them.

This is unconfirmed. The two "sources" are not cited. I find it hard to believe that with all the problems Apple had late in the development cycle (battery issues, software updates, etc) that they have been able to just crank out 3 million iPhones. I'm still banking on 200-300k units at launch with production slowly increasing from there.

I wish I knew how many AT&T stores there were. Since most stores expect to be getting 30-40 units, you could just multiply the two numbers, plus an estimate of 50-100 per Apple store (of which there are not that many) to figure out how many iPhones there really will be at launch.

Edit: so apparently there are roughly 10,000 AT&T stores, but I think that includes those tiny kiosk stores which probably one get more than a couple of iPhones. Even at 40 phones for every single store, that's only 400,000. Throw in the 150 or so Apple stores at 100 iPhones apiece, and you're still looking at a total of less than half a million.

[audiopollution]

Originally Posted by Eric1285

I wish I knew how many AT&T stores there were. Since most stores expect to be getting 30-40 units, you could just multiply the two numbers, plus an estimate of 50-100 per Apple store (of which there are not that many) to figure out how many iPhones there really will be at launch.

I'd be surprised if Apple only had 50-100 units at their brick and mortar locations. I suspect that they'll have plenty more than are being supplied to AT&T stores.

[SpamSandwich]

So that's uh... 200 or 300 units?

[audiopollution]

Originally Posted by Eric1285

Edit: so apparently there are roughly 10,000 AT&T stores, but I think that includes those tiny kiosk stores which probably one get more than a couple of iPhones. Even at 40 phones for every single store, that's only 400,000. Throw in the 150 or so Apple stores at 100 iPhones apiece, and you're still looking at a total of less than half a million.

There may be 10,000 AT&T 'resellers' but only approximately 2000 corporate locations will be selling the iPhone.

[toneloco28]

Originally Posted by desarc

did you hear that everyone? especially those of you in Connecticut - there WILL BE 3 MILLION units on day one.
there is NO NEED for you to go to the apple store at opening and stand in line. just go after work. i don't want to have to wait behind all of you in the morning. relax, they'll be there. no worries! i'll tell you how it is during the day and you can pick one up on your way home. there will be PLENTY of them.

LOL. Good one!!

[kenaustus]

I think that Apple will probably look first at their own stores and stock them based on their size and location. The Oklahoma City store isn't going to get as many as the stores in New York City.

Then they will do something similar for the ATT Stores, but at lower rates.

Finally they will have a good stock on hand for the online Apple Store and also to resupply all of the other stores, based on the first day's sales. Apple will probably look at sales at noon (in California), spot the locations that need stock and begin filling boxes to them, with another round later in the day.

Look for overnight resupply for stores out of stock (or very low) each day for the first week as well as Apple shipping direct to the factory to their own stores.

Steve J is going to have this planned and co-ordinated better than D Day was. And, yep, the online store will be the best place to get one if you live in the larger markets.

[Rot'nApple]

Originally Posted by desarc

did you hear that everyone? especially those of you in Connecticut - there WILL BE 3 MILLION units on day one.
there is NO NEED for you to go to the apple store at opening and stand in line. just go after work. i don't want to have to wait behind all of you in the morning. relax, they'll be there. no worries! i'll tell you how it is during the day and you can pick one up on your way home. there will be PLENTY of them.

Unless you happen to be person number 3,000,001!

[melgross]

Originally Posted by kenaustus

I think that Apple will probably look first at their own stores and stock them based on their size and location. The Oklahoma City store isn't going to get as many as the stores in New York City.

Then they will do something similar for the ATT Stores, but at lower rates.

Finally they will have a good stock on hand for the online Apple Store and also to resupply all of the other stores, based on the first day's sales. Apple will probably look at sales at noon (in California), spot the locations that need stock and begin filling boxes to them, with another round later in the day.

Look for overnight resupply for stores out of stock (or very low) each day for the first week as well as Apple shipping direct to the factory to their own stores.

Steve J is going to have this planned and co-ordinated better than D Day was. And, yep, the online store will be the best place to get one if you live in the larger markets.

I'm not sure if they can do that. This isn't like selling iPods.