Apple's iPhone the No. 4 U.S. handset during third quarter
Apple Inc.'s iPhone ranked No. 4 amongst all U.S. handset for the third calendar quarter of 2007 in terms of sales and is on track to potentially take over the No. 1 spot sometime in the next two quarters, according to a new report.
Data released Friday by global research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics projects that nearly 1.1 million units of the sleek touch-screen handset were delivered to U.S. consumers through the combined AT&T and Apple outlets during the third quarter, totaling 1.325 million units since its launch late in the second quarter.
Barry Gilbert, VP of the Strategy Analytics BuyerTRAX programs, said in the report that iPhone has emerged as AT&T’s top selling device, commanding some 13 percent of the wireless provider's overall handset sales, and the 4th top selling handset in the U.S. market.
"Although the iPhone hasn’t had an expansionary impact in the market, the iPhone has quickly assumed a leading market share position and raised the ante for smart devices," he wrote. "The sales trajectory we are observing with the iPhone could make it the top selling device in the U.S. over the next 1-2 quarters."
Currently, the top selling handset in the U.S. continues to be Motorola’s RAZR V3, however it appears to be losing momentum as new and more competitive models that erode both its share and popularity are being introduced. Strategy Analytics noted that the top 10 handset models account for approximately 25 percent of total handset sales in a typical quarter despite an increasing number of device offerings.
"The typical iPhone buyer is upwardly mobile, college educated with a six-figure household income," said David Kerr, Vice President of the Strategy Analytics Global Wireless Practice. "While the largest percentage of iPhone buyers is between 20-30 years old, the fact that nearly 25 percent were between 50-60 years old demonstrates that the device attracts buyers across a broad age spectrum."
Thus far, iPhone users are quite satisfied with the phone's design and features, Kerr added. However, they are slightly less enamored of actual iPhone reliability, battery life, documentation and customer support.
Data released Friday by global research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics projects that nearly 1.1 million units of the sleek touch-screen handset were delivered to U.S. consumers through the combined AT&T and Apple outlets during the third quarter, totaling 1.325 million units since its launch late in the second quarter.
Barry Gilbert, VP of the Strategy Analytics BuyerTRAX programs, said in the report that iPhone has emerged as AT&T’s top selling device, commanding some 13 percent of the wireless provider's overall handset sales, and the 4th top selling handset in the U.S. market.
"Although the iPhone hasn’t had an expansionary impact in the market, the iPhone has quickly assumed a leading market share position and raised the ante for smart devices," he wrote. "The sales trajectory we are observing with the iPhone could make it the top selling device in the U.S. over the next 1-2 quarters."
Currently, the top selling handset in the U.S. continues to be Motorola’s RAZR V3, however it appears to be losing momentum as new and more competitive models that erode both its share and popularity are being introduced. Strategy Analytics noted that the top 10 handset models account for approximately 25 percent of total handset sales in a typical quarter despite an increasing number of device offerings.
"The typical iPhone buyer is upwardly mobile, college educated with a six-figure household income," said David Kerr, Vice President of the Strategy Analytics Global Wireless Practice. "While the largest percentage of iPhone buyers is between 20-30 years old, the fact that nearly 25 percent were between 50-60 years old demonstrates that the device attracts buyers across a broad age spectrum."
Thus far, iPhone users are quite satisfied with the phone's design and features, Kerr added. However, they are slightly less enamored of actual iPhone reliability, battery life, documentation and customer support.
Comments
Where did he get that from? I'm curious.
Everyone I show it to loves it..as it exceeds the hype the media and Apple gave it.
Customer support has been A+ as usual for Apple.
Maybe a little FUD spin on the good news?
Not to mention iPhone nano, when that comes out:
Take the existing look of the iPhone, same 3 sensors, same materials, same glass front, same aluminum back with chrome Apple logo, and the same black plastic bottom to cover the antennas.
Now, remove all 5 internet functions; stocks, maps, weather, Mail and Safari, and reduce the size of the screen from 3 1/2" to about 2 3/4", and reduce the size of the phone accordingly. As the screen is smaller than the iPhone, and it's not a smartphone, it will NOT have a QWERTY keyboard, but rather a T9 software equivalent like the Prada phone has.
Some people have suggested the iPhone is not a "smartphone", well the iPhone nano is definitely not a smartphone. It's an iPod that can make calls, send texts, and take snaps--all with a cool multi-touch UI under a full screen of glass. Oh, and yes it does video. 4GB and 8GB versions which should retail for about $249 and $349 respectively.
Apple may even choose at a point to add QWERTY functionality. When in T9 keyboard mode, you turn the iPhone nano to landscape and you have a QWERTY horizontal keyboard, using software and the internal sensor. The resulting QWERTY keyboard would even be slightly bigger than the vertical one on the regular iPhone. Current iPhone owners need not worry though, as Apple should add that horizontal keyboard to most, if not all iPhone apps over time.
In Summery: No Edge, no 3G, no Wifi, no internet. Just an iPod and a phone, but with the same iPhone-like multi-touch user-interface. And yes, it comes in colors!
What's wrong with the reliability, battery life, documentation (LOADS of it) and customer support?
Where did he get that from? I'm curious.
He said "slightly"
Someone please, please post that quote from the (Palm?) CEO deriding Apple's ability to just come in and change the smartphone industry overnight.
"Is Apple serious competition? Palm CEO Ed Colligan seems downright nonchalant about rumors that Apple may introduce a mobile phone to market in the coming year," Sarah Jane Tribble and Dean Takahashi report for The San Jose Mercury News.
Tribble and Takahashi report, "Responding to questions from New York Times correspondent John Markoff at a Churchill Club breakfast gathering Thursday morning, Colligan laughed off the idea that any company -- including the wildly popular Apple Computer -- could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector. 'We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,' he said. 'PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.'"
http://www.macdailynews.com/index.ph...iphone_threat/
"Is Apple serious competition? Palm CEO Ed Colligan seems downright nonchalant about rumors that Apple may introduce a mobile phone to market in the coming year," Sarah Jane Tribble and Dean Takahashi report for The San Jose Mercury News.
Tribble and Takahashi report, "Responding to questions from New York Times correspondent John Markoff at a Churchill Club breakfast gathering Thursday morning, Colligan laughed off the idea that any company -- including the wildly popular Apple Computer -- could easily win customers in the finicky smart-phone sector. 'We've learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone,' he said. 'PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in.'"
http://www.macdailynews.com/index.ph...iphone_threat/
This was back in November of '06.
So this was when Palm was getting hyped about the Foleo, eh?
...it's kinda like that "Smarter than a 5th Grader" show.
haha
As for reliability problems, I'm on my second, and it shows signs of similar touchpad problems that my first one had. Apple was great about swapping it out though.
It almost got thrown off the roof of a hotel a couple months ago when Safari kept crashing though. Ironically, on Apple's website. An amazingly high number of people I talk to bemoan the lack of integration between contacts and SMS (SMS a contact to someone), SMS and E-Mail, and copy - paste.
Apple really needs to deal with those limitations before the UK Launch, unless they really have the fanatical fanbase comparable to the US.
If nothing else... it looks good... and that is really why people buy mobile phones...
What's wrong with the reliability, battery life, documentation (LOADS of it) and customer support?
Where did he get that from? I'm curious.
Nothing's wrong. They're "slightly less enamored" about those boring things than about the exciting features--but apparently still enamored
If they don't like the iPhone's long talk time, they REALLY don't want to try one of those other smart phones that only gets 2-3 hours battery life! (And yet tend to be thick as a brick, for some unknown reason. Maybe 3G is their problem
Some people have suggested the iPhone is not a "smartphone", .....
I agree. It's not a "smart"phone, it is a geniusphone. Not to get too teary-eyed about it or anything, but no consumer electronics product I have used before compares in form or function.
An amazingly high number of people I talk to bemoan the lack of integration between contacts and SMS (SMS a contact to someone), SMS and E-Mail, and copy - paste.
I wonder why they bought it, then. Those limitations are well-known. Moreover, those are fixes that will come in time.
If folks in the UK want to wait until that happens, then they should! (I predict, though, that it will fly off the shelves in the UK, France, and Germany; we'll know for sure in a few weeks, won't we!).
(One more thing: I don't see why is is so difficult to SMS a contact to someone. In the US, it is very easy to send a text message to anyone via email. The one that I use is [email protected]. Try it out!)
So... what were # 2 and #3?!
As for reliability problems, I'm on my second, and it shows signs of similar touchpad problems that my first one had. Apple was great about swapping it out though.
It almost got thrown off the roof of a hotel a couple months ago when Safari kept crashing though. Ironically, on Apple's website. An amazingly high number of people I talk to bemoan the lack of integration between contacts and SMS (SMS a contact to someone), SMS and E-Mail, and copy - paste.
Apple really needs to deal with those limitations before the UK Launch, unless they really have the fanatical fanbase comparable to the US.
If nothing else... it looks good... and that is really why people buy mobile phones...
You know, at some point, the idea that iPhone sales are propped up by fan boys, or that sales are propped up by the fashion conscious (or that sales are propped up by the delusional, or those succumbing to the the RDF) isn't going to work anymore. As will the idea that sales are soon to take a tumble (if not here than in one of those super demanding European cell phone paradises) because of not have enough "features".
The iPhone is very popular, is selling well, appears to have good prospects, and has very high customer satisfaction ratings.
Maybe, just maybe, there are plenty of people who think the iPhone is a good value for what it does, feel that it does what they want how they want it, and continue to think so after they buy one and tell other people so.
Is that really so hard to believe? That Apple got some things really right, in an industry largely devoted to features buried under terrible UIs? And that there a lot of buyers that appreciated that? And that that is more important than one feature or another?
It doesn't have to always be smoke and mirrors or some kind of misunderstanding or an anomalous blip. Could be Apple made a phone that people want and will buy, in every larger numbers.
I agree. It's not a "smart"phone, it is a geniusphone.
I know it is, but the iPhone nano wont be, that was just my little point.
You know, at some point, the idea that iPhone sales are propped up by fan boys, or that sales are propped up by the fashion conscious (or that sales are propped up by the delusional, or those succumbing to the the RDF) isn't going to work anymore.
That's what amazes me. A phone breaks onto the scene in a cut-throat market like cellular phone services that requires a carrier lock and more cash than most other phones and rips customers away from their current plans and phones in the numbers that the iPhone is generating and people attribute it to "fanboyism"?
Sheesh. Can you imagine if people WEREN'T locked into existing plans with carriers other than AT&T? I mean, come on! AT&T has a cellular customer base of 63.7 million subscribers out of the more than 233 million cell phone users in the US. iPhone purchases will continue in large numbers for the next couple of years as contract periods expire.
By then the iPhone / AT&T carrier lock contract will expire and Apple will be able to expand onto those other carriers networks... if those other carriers still exist. It'll be interesting.
You know, at some point, the idea that iPhone sales are propped up by fan boys, or that sales are propped up by the fashion conscious (or that sales are propped up by the delusional, or those succumbing to the the RDF) isn't going to work anymore. As will the idea that sales are soon to take a tumble (if not here than in one of those super demanding European cell phone paradises) because of not have enough "features".
The iPhone is very popular, is selling well, appears to have good prospects, and has very high customer satisfaction ratings.
Maybe, just maybe, there are plenty of people who think the iPhone is a good value for what it does, feel that it does what they want how they want it, and continue to think so after they buy one and tell other people so.
Is that really so hard to believe? That Apple got some things really right, in an industry largely devoted to features buried under terrible UIs? And that there a lot of buyers that appreciated that? And that that is more important than one feature or another?
It doesn't have to always be smoke and mirrors or some kind of misunderstanding or an anomalous blip. Could be Apple made a phone that people want and will buy, in every larger numbers.
Here, here. Very well put. Thank you.
You know, at some point, the idea that iPhone sales are propped up by fan boys, or that sales are propped up by the fashion conscious...
The reality of the cell phone market is that there are two primary segments: functionality and fashion.
The RAZR was a bastard in terms of functionality, but it was a success in fashion. Newer Blackberries become must-haves for PHB and middle managers because they *look* so much better than the old ones. In almost none of these cases is the core functionality the incentive to purchase, or more importantly, upgrade the phone. People buy a new one because it looks better.
Clearly the fact that the RAZR is the best selling phone in history must validate this fact...
The functional market is very different; it is broken into two distinct groups - feature and anti-feature. The feature groups want the built-in microwave oven functionality, and the anti-feature group just want a damn phone that makes calls.
Where Apple has been most successful with the iPhone marketing from what I see is the group whose functional demands are minimal, fashion value high, and help to convert them into higher-end function users. That is simply good marketing. It has nothing to do with 3G, RDF, or anything else. From standing in line though, I know that the bulk of the first two weeks sales were people that would be broadly classified as fanboys. The more politically correct term would be "early adopter..."