“Apple CEO Steve Jobs will need to work some magic to hit his sales target of 10 million iPhones this year,” Priya Ganapati reports for TheStreet.com. “Since the iPhone’s launch in June, Apple has sold about 4 million devices, including 2.3 million during the important holiday season.”
“To reach the 10 million mark, it needs to average 2.5 million phones in sales a quarter over the next four quarters — or 200,000 more than what it sold during the big holiday season,” Ganapati reports.
“Some analysts say Apple will have to cut deals with more phone carriers outside the U.S., upgrade the iPhone and most importantly, drop the price in order to reach its ambitious sales target,” Ganapati reports.
MacDailyNews Take: So, the genius analysts predict that Apple will have to do exactly as Apple has planned and operate exactly as Apple has historically with iPod. Thanks for the incisive analysis, guys and gals.
Ganapati continues, “A price cut is a possibility, agrees Mike Abramsky, an analyst with RBC Capital. But what’s more likely to happen, he says, is that Apple will upgrade the software in the existing iPhone and offer new models, including the much-awaited 3G version of the phone.”
“Despite investor fears, Apple’s iPhone sales have been solid, says Abramsky. iPhone sales in the quarter ended Dec. 30 were up 107% from the previous quarter, while the smart-phone industry is estimated to have grown at 13% to 15%,” Ganapati reports. “‘The 4 million phones sold in the first six months is also double the initial run rate of the Motorola Razr,’ says Abramsky. ‘From our perspective, the early performance of the iPhone is nothing short of remarkable relative to other historic phone launches.'”
Full article, which is inexplicably headlined “Apple’s iPhone Elixir: Cut Prices,” along with a bunch of nonsense about supposed investor “concerns” over normal iPhone inventory levels (see: the ginned-up “missing iPhones” malarky) here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Linux Guy And Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
Apple seems to always use it’s massive performance as leverage to sell more product. I don’t see why they won’t do it again,
Hey MDN, where did you get the headline “Analyst: Apple iPhone sales are nothing short of remarkable” from the article???
The author never says that.
He says: “Apple’s iPhone sales have been solid”
That is not remarkable.
In fact, the entire article is very cautionary about Apple iPhone sales, not glowing and no words of “nothing short of remarkable” as you try to spin it.
JUST COME OUT WITH iPHONE II ALREADY!!!
Come on Steve, you know the first version is not quite up to snuff.
Get it right with version 2. We all know what happened with the iPod V 1.0.
“To reach the 10 million mark, it needs to average 2.5 million phones in sales a quarter over the next four quarters”
Aahhh isn’t that 10 Mil. alone? What about the 4 Mil. they already sold? By my math they need to sell 6 Mil. more or 1.5 Mil. a quarter for the next four quarters. Am I missing something here or did someone forget to add…
Hi Larry, welcome to the disinformation station.
By Larry.*waits for post to be deleted*
Wait, they need to sell 6 million phones in about 4 quarters. That’s 1.5 million per quarter, _not_ 2.5 million. What the hell? Can’t this guy even do basic math??
Eh, isn’t 10 mill. in total, from launch to calender year 2008 ??
Then it’s only 6 mill. more or 1.5 mill., the last 4 quarters, which is more than do-able.
Wait a minute!
Wasn’t Apple’s claim for 10 million total by the end of CY 2008., not 10 million in CY 2008?
This maroon can’t get the facts straight, and MDN doesn’t call them on it?
Did I fail math class? They have already sold 4 million. That only leaves 6 Million to go. 6 Mill / 4 quarters = 1.5 million, not 2.5 million, that would = 14 million phones total by the end of 2008.
I don’t think I would put my money on this guy. He states that 4 million have been sold, then he says to reach 10 million, Apple needs to sell 2.5 million per quarter for the next 4 quarters… by my math this adds to 14 million phones sold. In reality Apple needs to sell 6 million more phones or 1.5 million per quarter which is well under the current run rate. This also assumes that Apple does not update the phone, add new models, change pricing, add additional conutries (Canada please), ….
I hope they introduce new higher-featured models at the same high price, but reduce the existing-feature model’s prices. This works well with Macs.
Changing the Nano to the small size, but touch screen would make sense if they can keep the price down and still make coloured versions.
The iPods need a refresh since most people already have a model of at least one of the past 2 generations. WiFi & SDK apps in the Nano seem to be the next big thing – maybe using the new Intel chips and Touch/iPhone OS.
I would like KeyNote (presentation only, not editing) in the Touch/iPhone to limit my need to carry a laptop.
Missing iPhones: an MDN ad above (in the UK) offers to hack your iPhone for £9.95 to use any SIM. In my shopping centre iPhones are available from 4 of the 10 phone shops in a row. The UK sales of hacked phones must be huge, despite having O2.
You have to wonder if analysts can read. Apple claimed that it would sell 10 million phones in 18 months. It has sold 3.7 million phones in 6 months. By my calculations that leaves only 6.3 million phones to be sold in the next 12 months (2008) to reach a goal that analysts originally claimed as ambitious. By my calculations that works out to less than an average of 1.6 million iPhones per quarter.
If one assumes that the iPhone follows the rest of Apple’s line and will sell at 75% of the holiday rate this quarter, the rate for this quarter should be like 1.7 million iPhones per quarter. So even with no growth, Apple should have no problems (which I believe was the statement by Apple executives in the conference call). Another way to look at it might be to take the 300,000 iPhones in the first two weeks before MWSF as representative of this quarter. That number translates into 1.8 million iPhones per quarter, which is even better for Apple.
OTOH, if Apple “stuffed the channel” to get to the 4 million number in time for MWSF, actual sales to customers might be closer to the 1.6 million number that was the first projection.
“including the much-awaited 3G version of the phone.”
How many online vids and demos do we have to see that 3G isn’t really all that big of a deal?
@Larry the Lawyer & Old Mac Man
“‘The 4 million phones sold in the first six months is also double the initial run rate of the Motorola Razr,’ says Abramsky. ‘From our perspective, the early performance of the iPhone is nothing short of remarkable relative to other historic phone launches.'”
If you learn how to read very closely you will see in this abbreviated article near the bottom the above quotes. Since it is not fine print, I can understand Larry missing it. Old man must just be old. Stupid is as stupid does! There is also a link if you want to read the whole article
“Come on Steve, you know the first version is not quite up to snuff.”
Um, obviously you don’t have one. I’ve got one. I know a lot of people who have one and every one who does loves it. Loves.
L.O.V.E.S. it.
What’s not up to ‘snuff’?
Apple’s stated goal is to do 10 million phones in calendar 2008. Check your notes.
By the way, investors are not worried about the reaching that goal. Journalists are writing that we are worried because making that up was easier than discovering something insightful.
Shall I be 197th person to say that the guy doesn’t know basic math? (followed by the numbers 1.7 million, 4 million, 6 million and 10 million, as well as 2008?). Talk about an irked readership!
On the iPhone V2. Let’s first agree that it will eventually come. Perhaps sometime this summer, perhaps for the next Christmas season. It will come when the time is ready for a natural succession, just like every Apple product reaches that time. Not sooner. Will it have 3G? That’s no really important. 3G is one of those myths like the ‘missing’ physical keyboard; or non-removable battery; or missing floppy drive for Macs (in 2008; not when it first went missing in 1998). Microsoft’s (and RIM’s, and Nokia’s, and Samsung’s) astroturfers keep hammering at the idea that somehow these issues are serious disadvantages to the iPhone. The reality (proven, tested, both by reviewers, as well as consumers) is that none of them matter. IPhone is leaps and bounds beyond everyone else. The next revision will come once this one reaches all major global markets and everyone who wants to will have had a chance to get one (legally).
If you don’t think iPhone I is good enough for you and are expecting iPhone II to give you what you want, just wait for it. For the rest of the world, the future is now (to use that worn-out phrase…)
Thanks, “An Observer”!
I just wrote her with the CORRECT statement from Apple and Steve Jobs concerning the first 18 months of the iPhone’s sales figures . . . not the first full calendar year.
Let’s see if she has the curry-age to print a modified article.
@Tom,
Apple’s stated goal is to sell 10 million phone BY THE END of calendar 2008, NOT “in” calendar 2008.
You can talk about math, numbers, or how many I-Phones Apple has to sell in each quarter all you want. The simple fact is THE I-PHONE IS A CATASTROPHIC DISASTER!
The strange thing is that piece of junk has been critically panned and virtually ignored by the market, but you MAC sheep keep trying to prop it up with nonsense stories and references to obscure blogs. Whatever. Did you know you can get a Motorola Q or a Palm Centro for a lot less? They don’t have that crappy Apple OS either.
Your potential. Our passion.™
There is some ambiguity in the stated goal, but Jobs said Apple wants 1% of the market by the end of 2008, which he said would be about 10 million sales per year (since the market is about 1 billion sales per year).
Everyone seems to agree this is calendar year and not fiscal year, so the year ends in December and not September – COO Cook reiterated that in the conference call. So 1% of mobile phones in calendar year 2008 would be 10 million sales in calendar year 2008. If Jobs meant 18 months, then it would have to be 15 million for it to be 1% because there would be about 1.5 billion phones sold in 18 months.
So I agree with Tom.
My Verizon contract expires in 4 days
For those of you stating that 3G does not make a difference I beg to differ…
It may not make a difference if you are running a crappy OS and browser like the Nokia phones do, but I be it will make a HUGE difference on the iPhone.
I love my 2.5G iPhone, but it is annoying to visit sites like MDN on EDGE rather than on 3G, not to mention the fact that many phone calls go directly to voicemail when browsing on EDGE and that is not supposed to happen with 3G.
Just my two cents.
sorry folks i think it is more complicated. when steve jobs first stated the goal of 10 million iphones he gave (probably not by accident) to different numbers. in the 07 keynote he said that the company wants to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008 but at the same keynote he also said that apple wants 1 percent of the cellphone market IN 2008 which makes 10-11 million phones IN 2008. i think they play games here just in case they miss that target. but with new models, lower pricepoints and more countries i think it will be quiet easy to sell 10-12 million in 2008.
@qka, ‘This maroon can’t get the facts straight, and MDN doesn’t call them on it?’
That’s really asking a lot of MDN.