“Remember the days when Nintendo first released its Wii? The company launched the gaming platform before Christmas, hoping that the buzz of Christmas shopping would ignite sales. And Nintendo was right,” Chris Marasco writes for The Motley Fool. “The Wii was so hot that stores couldn’t keep it stocked. Customers camped out in line in hopes of being able to acquire the coveted Wii, and profits accrued to the gutsy entrepreneurs that paid friends to wait in line with them so that they could sell the new Wiis on eBay, where Wii prices were exorbitantly high.”

“Like the Wii, the hot launch of the iPhone 5 is another Apple product to sell out – except that its launch leaves the Wii in the dust,” Marasco writes. “With demand outstripping supply, Apple likely could have sold more than ‘over five million’ iPhones over the first weekend. However, producing more iPhones is just one way for Apple to sell even more phones. Apple also has a bench full of potential new distributors.”

Marasco writes, “A large part of Apple’s success has come from adding carriers… Apple still has a number of expansion options. T-Mobile USA, South Korea’s LG Telecom, Japan’s NTT DoCoMo, and China Mobile are large carriers that do not yet offer iPhone 5. The latest iPhone is the first of its kind to offer a chip compatible with China Mobile, the world’s largest carrier. One analyst estimates that Apple can still target 500 million subscribers, a 50% increase from the 1 billion already targeted by Apple’s current carriers. Further, of those 500 million, only 175 million come from the T-Mobile, LG Telecom, NTT, and China Mobile.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Edward W." for the heads up.]