'Out of Stock' creates some of the best free advertising in the world.
Unfortunately, it's not just an iPhone problem.
It's now 2 days after the iPhone launch and you STILL can't upgrade ANY phone on AT&T's web site. Yesterday, they were claiming that the system was still messed up from the iPhone 4, but you'd think those orders would have slowed down by now. I tried to upgrade my daughter's phone this morning at 5:30 am central and it wouldn't even let me access the 'upgrade' portion of the site.
It is really disturbing that AT&T's so hopeless at creating an ordering web site that it's down 2 days after the product launch.
I think Apple needs to announce how they've addressed this. Selling out initially is great. People thinking you can't meet demand in the United States and you still have the rest of the world waiting means lost business opportunities and could harm the stock price.
Come on Apple announce how many iPhones you've got humming out of the factories and give us the timeline for when you expect to hit the mark for U.S needs, and world needs.
I am pretty sure the real number is 0. The fact that they pulled the preorder at the last minute and Best Buy never got the message seems to indicate a problem they caught before release.
Speculation.
Quote:
The earlier reports were that they would have 6 million units for launch weekend and they expected 2 million pre-orders. If they built up a supply of 3GS units and then switched to iphone 4 production in late April or early May, the 6 million figure seems to add up. Buit where are the 6 million phones then?
This is wrong. The reports were that they expected to produce 3,000,000 the first MONTH. No way they were going to have 6,000,000 ready for "launch weekend."
Quote:
The 600,000 figure does not make much sense. They have been selling close to 3 million phones a month, or more than 600,000 per week.
It makes lots of sense. 600,000 per week of an in-channel, established product versus 600,000 pre-orders of new product...in ONE day. Do the math. Demand is at least 5x greater than normal.
Quote:
Figuring everyone who would have bought one in June has been waiting since the announcement, if not longer, the normal demand level would account for more than 600,000 devices by now.
What are you talking about? Assuming they are selling 600,000 per week, 600,00 per DAY is unreal.
Quote:
This is NOT a big number or a huge success for Apple, it is a normal weeks volume packed into a day after normal sales were all but cutoff for a week.
You're assuming equal demand for iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4. You're ascribing all kinds of motives to people for buying. The fact is that there has probably never been a consumer product launch this big. Ever. But hey, it's not a big success. Apple prepared for record demand and instituted pre-ordering, and then the actual orders blew even their wildest expectations out of the war. But it's not a big success. What the hell are you smoking?
Quote:
Weird. Is it possible Apple is only allowing pre-orders for 10% and the other 90% will be for walkins? That will really irk the people who pre-ordered today and have to wait several weeks to get a phone they could have picked up in store. Plus many WILL pick it up in the store and cancel the pre-order which will be a mess for Apple. That just does not seem likely. Did the 6 million iphone 4's not materialize? Were many of them (White, or white and some black?) defective? There is definitely something messed up with this.
No. They were overwhelmed with pre-orders. That's all that happened. We don't know how many will go for walk-ins. We can only guess.
Quote:
I guess we will find out if Apple really does have millions of phones to sell by the end of the June quarter like Wall Street believes. Either people with these late ship dates will be pleasently surprised next week, or the stores will have plenty of unclaimed stock while the early birds wait. Or there really is less than a million iPhone 4 units for a launch that was expected to exceed the 3Gs's 3 million unit opening weekend. Hmmmmmmmmm.
Of course they have millions, or will have them. The problem is they might sell them faster than they can make them.
This is wrong. The reports were that they expected to produce 3,000,000 the first MONTH. No way they were going to have 6,000,000 ready for "launch weekend."
That was a number floated. If they started making them in late April, at 3m a month, they would have 6m by the end of June. This is not much higher than 3Gs production, so it is certainly within the relm of plausible.
You seem to miss the point of the rest of my comments. I would have expected far more than 600,000 pre-orders (if the system worked). Selling a weeks worth in one day, is hardly a big deal when you closed up shop for the prior week. Thats barely breaking even. If they had said they took 2+ million orders I would not have been surprised. Also, ship dates slipping into late July do not add up to 3m units per month production rates. That would be 750,000 units per week, plus any built up supply from the last 1-2 months of pre-production.
Quote:
The fact is that there has probably never been a consumer product launch this big. Ever.
Unless a lot of inventory shows up on launch day for in store sales, 600,000 will be a small number compared to the 3Gs launch last year. They may have had fewer pre-orders, but they sold about 3m phones opening weekend, and had supply shortages into July. This may be the biggest product launch in terms of demand, but unless they have phones to sell it wont mean much.
That was a number floated. If they started making them in late April, at 3m a month, they would have 6m by the end of June. This is not much higher than 3Gs production, so it is certainly within the relm of plausible.
You misunderstood the number. The plan was to have sold 3M at the end of a month. That doesn't mean they started in April and had double that number on hand.
Quote:
You seem to miss the point of the rest of my comments. I would have expected far more than 600,000 pre-orders (if the system worked). Selling a weeks worth in one day, is hardly a big deal when you closed up shop for the prior week. Thats barely breaking even. If they had said they took 2+ million orders I would not have been surprised. Also, ship dates slipping into late July do not add up to 3m units per month production rates. That would be 750,000 units per week, plus any built up supply from the last 1-2 months of pre-production.
And you seem to keep making the same false assumptions. It's really impossible to measure what demand would have been without the new product launch. Sales vary week-to-week, and are affected by everything from a pending new product intro to seasonal variations. You can't just assume that there are 600,000 people who waited a week just because the quarterly average over the past YEAR broke down to 600,000 a week. There were very likely weeks in there where they sold less than 100,000. Last, we don't know if we're talking only individual orders or wholesale orders. I seriously doubt that Apple was selling 600,000 individual orders a week.
Quote:
Unless a lot of inventory shows up on launch day for in store sales, 600,000 will be a small number compared to the 3Gs launch last year. They may have had fewer pre-orders, but they sold about 3m phones opening weekend, and had supply shortages into July....
Looks like Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s second estimate of Apple’s weekend iPhone sales underestimated demand just as badly as his first. Apple didn’t sell 500,000 units of its new iPhone 3GS over the weekend, as Munster first predicted. Nor did the company sell 750,000 units as he said in a research note this morning. It sold over one million.
Quote:
This may be the biggest product launch in terms of demand, but unless they have phones to sell it wont mean much.
Well, which is it? Is there huge demand, or are you ho-humming it? The demand for the product is clear. And while I'm no Apple apologist, I think they'll be just fine with filling orders. More than fine...it will be their biggest product launch, ever.
I got an email on preorder day from att saying that my order was confirmed. I got an email with my order number. Now the order tracking system does not recognize my order number. I may be screwed on launch day.
Comments
'Out of Stock' creates some of the best free advertising in the world.
Unfortunately, it's not just an iPhone problem.
It's now 2 days after the iPhone launch and you STILL can't upgrade ANY phone on AT&T's web site. Yesterday, they were claiming that the system was still messed up from the iPhone 4, but you'd think those orders would have slowed down by now. I tried to upgrade my daughter's phone this morning at 5:30 am central and it wouldn't even let me access the 'upgrade' portion of the site.
It is really disturbing that AT&T's so hopeless at creating an ordering web site that it's down 2 days after the product launch.
Come on Apple announce how many iPhones you've got humming out of the factories and give us the timeline for when you expect to hit the mark for U.S needs, and world needs.
I am pretty sure the real number is 0. The fact that they pulled the preorder at the last minute and Best Buy never got the message seems to indicate a problem they caught before release.
Speculation.
The earlier reports were that they would have 6 million units for launch weekend and they expected 2 million pre-orders. If they built up a supply of 3GS units and then switched to iphone 4 production in late April or early May, the 6 million figure seems to add up. Buit where are the 6 million phones then?
This is wrong. The reports were that they expected to produce 3,000,000 the first MONTH. No way they were going to have 6,000,000 ready for "launch weekend."
The 600,000 figure does not make much sense. They have been selling close to 3 million phones a month, or more than 600,000 per week.
It makes lots of sense. 600,000 per week of an in-channel, established product versus 600,000 pre-orders of new product...in ONE day. Do the math. Demand is at least 5x greater than normal.
Figuring everyone who would have bought one in June has been waiting since the announcement, if not longer, the normal demand level would account for more than 600,000 devices by now.
What are you talking about? Assuming they are selling 600,000 per week, 600,00 per DAY is unreal.
This is NOT a big number or a huge success for Apple, it is a normal weeks volume packed into a day after normal sales were all but cutoff for a week.
Weird. Is it possible Apple is only allowing pre-orders for 10% and the other 90% will be for walkins? That will really irk the people who pre-ordered today and have to wait several weeks to get a phone they could have picked up in store. Plus many WILL pick it up in the store and cancel the pre-order which will be a mess for Apple. That just does not seem likely. Did the 6 million iphone 4's not materialize? Were many of them (White, or white and some black?) defective? There is definitely something messed up with this.
No. They were overwhelmed with pre-orders. That's all that happened. We don't know how many will go for walk-ins. We can only guess.
I guess we will find out if Apple really does have millions of phones to sell by the end of the June quarter like Wall Street believes. Either people with these late ship dates will be pleasently surprised next week, or the stores will have plenty of unclaimed stock while the early birds wait. Or there really is less than a million iPhone 4 units for a launch that was expected to exceed the 3Gs's 3 million unit opening weekend. Hmmmmmmmmm.
Of course they have millions, or will have them. The problem is they might sell them faster than they can make them.
Now up to July 24.......
You snooze, you lose.
Glad I got mine in yesterday. At this point, they should just stop pre-orders I think.
This is wrong. The reports were that they expected to produce 3,000,000 the first MONTH. No way they were going to have 6,000,000 ready for "launch weekend."
That was a number floated. If they started making them in late April, at 3m a month, they would have 6m by the end of June. This is not much higher than 3Gs production, so it is certainly within the relm of plausible.
You seem to miss the point of the rest of my comments. I would have expected far more than 600,000 pre-orders (if the system worked). Selling a weeks worth in one day, is hardly a big deal when you closed up shop for the prior week. Thats barely breaking even. If they had said they took 2+ million orders I would not have been surprised. Also, ship dates slipping into late July do not add up to 3m units per month production rates. That would be 750,000 units per week, plus any built up supply from the last 1-2 months of pre-production.
The fact is that there has probably never been a consumer product launch this big. Ever.
Unless a lot of inventory shows up on launch day for in store sales, 600,000 will be a small number compared to the 3Gs launch last year. They may have had fewer pre-orders, but they sold about 3m phones opening weekend, and had supply shortages into July. This may be the biggest product launch in terms of demand, but unless they have phones to sell it wont mean much.
That was a number floated. If they started making them in late April, at 3m a month, they would have 6m by the end of June. This is not much higher than 3Gs production, so it is certainly within the relm of plausible.
You misunderstood the number. The plan was to have sold 3M at the end of a month. That doesn't mean they started in April and had double that number on hand.
You seem to miss the point of the rest of my comments. I would have expected far more than 600,000 pre-orders (if the system worked). Selling a weeks worth in one day, is hardly a big deal when you closed up shop for the prior week. Thats barely breaking even. If they had said they took 2+ million orders I would not have been surprised. Also, ship dates slipping into late July do not add up to 3m units per month production rates. That would be 750,000 units per week, plus any built up supply from the last 1-2 months of pre-production.
And you seem to keep making the same false assumptions. It's really impossible to measure what demand would have been without the new product launch. Sales vary week-to-week, and are affected by everything from a pending new product intro to seasonal variations. You can't just assume that there are 600,000 people who waited a week just because the quarterly average over the past YEAR broke down to 600,000 a week. There were very likely weeks in there where they sold less than 100,000. Last, we don't know if we're talking only individual orders or wholesale orders. I seriously doubt that Apple was selling 600,000 individual orders a week.
Unless a lot of inventory shows up on launch day for in store sales, 600,000 will be a small number compared to the 3Gs launch last year. They may have had fewer pre-orders, but they sold about 3m phones opening weekend, and had supply shortages into July....
I don't know where you get your numbers.
http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/2...s-models-sold/
Looks like Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster’s second estimate of Apple’s weekend iPhone sales underestimated demand just as badly as his first. Apple didn’t sell 500,000 units of its new iPhone 3GS over the weekend, as Munster first predicted. Nor did the company sell 750,000 units as he said in a research note this morning. It sold over one million.
This may be the biggest product launch in terms of demand, but unless they have phones to sell it wont mean much.
Well, which is it? Is there huge demand, or are you ho-humming it? The demand for the product is clear. And while I'm no Apple apologist, I think they'll be just fine with filling orders. More than fine...it will be their biggest product launch, ever.
the July 14th batch?
With 600,000 pre-orders already for launch, how many pre-orders do you think Apple will get for the July 14th batch?
3 Million.