Apple iPhone 3G sales surpass RIM's Blackberry
Apple announced quarterly iPhone sales that surpassed those of BlackBerry maker Research in Motion by nearly a million and a half units or 25%: nearly 6.9 million iPhones versus the 5.4 to 6.1 million BlackBerry units RIM sold per quarter during the same calendar quarter in 2008. Apple and RIM have non-overlapping fiscal quarters.
Apple's iPhone sales numbers for the third calendar quarter, which exceeded the previous five quarters' sales combined, easily blew past consensus estimates of 4 million units, and exceeded the expectations of all of the Wall Street analysts we reported earlier today.
Apple also exceeded estimates for Mac and iPod sales by selling more Macs that in any previous quarter and more iPods than in any non-holiday quarter, but passing RIM to become America's best selling smartphone platform, as well as passing its ten million iPhone goal a full quarter early, is sure to catch the most attention of Apple's sales announcements.
RIM has been selling its popular devices for nearly eight years, and achieved peak sales this year after doubling its sales year over year. Apple's ability to catch up and surpass RIM's sales in the course of a single year should strike additional fear in the hearts of boardrooms of companies with smartphone platforms that are doing far worse than RIM, including Nokia's Symbian and Microsoft's Windows Mobile.
Apple also announced that it is now the third largest mobile phone maker by revenue, after Nokia and Samsung. With mobile sales of $4.6 billion for the quarter, Apple is ahead of Sony Ericsson $4.2 billion, LG at $3.4 billion, Motorola with $3.2 billion, and seventh place RIM at $2.1 billion.
Additional Coverage
Apple profits rise 26% on sales of 2.6M Macs, 6.8M iPhones
Notes of interest for Apple's Q4 2008 results call
Steve Jobs on Apple's cash, NetBooks, Apple TV, and Cheap PCs
iPhone App Store continues to exceed iTunes song sales growth
Apple's iPhone sales numbers for the third calendar quarter, which exceeded the previous five quarters' sales combined, easily blew past consensus estimates of 4 million units, and exceeded the expectations of all of the Wall Street analysts we reported earlier today.
Apple also exceeded estimates for Mac and iPod sales by selling more Macs that in any previous quarter and more iPods than in any non-holiday quarter, but passing RIM to become America's best selling smartphone platform, as well as passing its ten million iPhone goal a full quarter early, is sure to catch the most attention of Apple's sales announcements.
RIM has been selling its popular devices for nearly eight years, and achieved peak sales this year after doubling its sales year over year. Apple's ability to catch up and surpass RIM's sales in the course of a single year should strike additional fear in the hearts of boardrooms of companies with smartphone platforms that are doing far worse than RIM, including Nokia's Symbian and Microsoft's Windows Mobile.
Apple also announced that it is now the third largest mobile phone maker by revenue, after Nokia and Samsung. With mobile sales of $4.6 billion for the quarter, Apple is ahead of Sony Ericsson $4.2 billion, LG at $3.4 billion, Motorola with $3.2 billion, and seventh place RIM at $2.1 billion.
Additional Coverage
Apple profits rise 26% on sales of 2.6M Macs, 6.8M iPhones
Notes of interest for Apple's Q4 2008 results call
Steve Jobs on Apple's cash, NetBooks, Apple TV, and Cheap PCs
iPhone App Store continues to exceed iTunes song sales growth
Comments
A better than expected quarter, though the new MacBook pricing at least here in the UK is a bit higher than expected, I myself am waiting for the new iMacs.
But once again SJ and company have come up with totally disruptive technology packaged in an easy to use form that has shot dead many of the business models thought to be indisputable. The so-called ruthless cell phone manufacturers are scrambling to deal with this disruption in their markets. It's a pleasure to watch this going down. Oh the schadenfreude!
....as well as passing its ten million iPhone goal a full quarter early.....
Not quite Daniel. 9.312 million iPhones in the first 3 quarters.
"Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? I want to have products that appeal to everybody," he said. "We'll get a chance to go through this [Apple versus Microsoft debate] again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get."
So Apple must be lying or something.
</sarcasm>
Curious, is this iphone 3g against blackberry phones or one phone??
All BlackBerry phones worldwide.
Curious, is this iphone 3g against blackberry phones or one phone??
It'll be iPhone 3G sold in this last quarter totally more than all of the Blackberry phones sold during the same quarter (all models from Blackberry).
Steve Ballmer said:
"Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? I want to have products that appeal to everybody," he said. "We'll get a chance to go through this [Apple versus Microsoft debate] again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get."
So Apple must be lying or something.
</sarcasm>
I know! Ballmer is seriously an idiot, or he must strategically lie.
Apple also announced that it is now the third largest mobile phone maker by revenue, after Nokia and Samsung. With mobile sales of $4.6 billion for the quarter, Apple is ahead of Sony Ericsson $4.2 billion, LG at $3.4 billion, Motorola with $3.2 billion, and seventh place RIM at $2.1 billion.
The important words there are "by revenue." Many of the other manufacturers trounce Apple in unit sales because their phones are very cheap or even free with contract.
Curious, is this iphone 3g against blackberry phones or one phone??
It's iPhone compared with ALL Blackberry phones. Apple beat them by about 800,000 units. It's slightly misleading since it's June-Aug 30 for RIM vs. July-Sept 30 for Apple, so it's not exactly an Apples-to-Apples comparison (or even an Apples-to-Berries).
One interesting point, though, is that RIM had 6.1 million sales, but only 2.6 million new subscribers. I would bet that Apple did much better than that -- in other words, I would suspect that the number of actual new iPhone users is growing significantly faster than the number of new BB users.
The iPhone numbers are incredible. Like someone said, it's nice to see the carriers scramble. Especially after years of sitting back and selling us shoddy interfaces and stagnant technology.
The important words there are "by revenue." Many of the other manufacturers trounce Apple in unit sales because their phones are very cheap or even free with contract.
The question is would you rather have lots of revenue or move a lot of basic product?
Actually, to me profit is more important but hey who cares about making money in a Web 2.0 world?
It's iPhone compared with ALL Blackberry phones. Apple beat them by about 800,000 units. It's slightly misleading since it's June-Aug 30 for RIM vs. July-Sept 30 for Apple, so it's not exactly an Apples-to-Apples comparison (or even an Apples-to-Berries).
One interesting point, though, is that RIM had 6.1 million sales, but only 2.6 million new subscribers. I would bet that Apple did much better than that -- in other words, I would suspect that the number of actual new iPhone users is growing significantly faster than the number of new BB users.
New subscribers to the blackberry email service. You can buy a blackberry and not have the email service from them.
He had his idiotogoly mixed-up the x-box and zune percentages.
P.S. Bill was the smart one, he made his exit in time so SB gets blame.
Anyone know the "growth" for MS Mobile"?
The important words there are "by revenue." Many of the other manufacturers trounce Apple in unit sales because their phones are very cheap or even free with contract.
Uh... I guess you didn't read that part at the beginning of the article where it said "units" and not "revenue"?
Steve Ballmer said:
"Would I trade 96% of the market for 4% of the market? I want to have products that appeal to everybody," he said. "We'll get a chance to go through this [Apple versus Microsoft debate] again in phones and music players. There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. They may make a lot of money. But if you actually take a look at the 1.3 billion phones that get sold, I'd prefer to have our software in 60% or 70% or 80% of them, than I would to have 2% or 3%, which is what Apple might get."
So Apple must be lying or something.
</sarcasm>
Ballmer is quite the genius.
Jazz hands!
Not quite Daniel. 9.312 million iPhones in the first 3 quarters.
and they already sold the other 600 thousand + this quarter to hit the 10 million Apple's
The question is would you rather have lots of revenue or move a lot of basic product?
It's the same choice as PCs vs. Macs. At the end of the day, a lot of people will look for what's cheapest and what they're familiar with. They won't spend $200 on a cell phone, no matter how whizbang its features are, especially if they'd be forced to buy an expensive data plan with it. That translates to mindshare.
Uh... I guess you didn't read that part at the beginning of the article where it said "units" and not "revenue"?
Uh, I guess you didn't read the part where I was referring to most of the other makers, not RIM, which was what the first sentence of the article referred to.
Apple also announced that it is now the third largest mobile phone maker by revenue, after Nokia and Samsung. With mobile sales of $4.6 billion for the quarter, Apple is ahead of Sony Ericsson $4.2 billion, LG at $3.4 billion, Motorola with $3.2 billion, and seventh place RIM at $2.1 billion.
The important words there are "by revenue." Many of the other manufacturers trounce Apple in unit sales because their phones are very cheap or even free with contract.
Yup!
But, in phones, unlike computers, it's the revenue that counts more.
With computers, if you don't have credible marketshare, you won't get the software, or the hardware, which limits the growth of the platform, and can even kill it, we've seen it happen many times over the years.
But with phones, the organized manner in which the iPhone and its ecosystem has been developed has been masterful.
The really cheap software helps very much. It becomes an impulse buy.