“The most important date for Apple Inc.’s iPhone X may be a week before the flagship smartphone actually reaches stores,” Alex Webb writes for Bloomberg. “On Friday, consumers can pre-order the $999 device, which will ship by Nov. 3. Apple has faced limited supplies of some components, so that date may slip after the first few million orders. Securing early customer pledges to buy the handset will help ensure they don’t opt for competing devices in the crucial holiday shopping season, even if they wait longer than expected to receive their iPhone X.”
“‘Any time you can get people to pre-commit to a product that’s not available, it’s good news,’ said Julie Ask, a Forrester Research analyst. ‘It gives you a lot of visibility, it’s less expensive than selling it to people in stores, it’s easier to tell people when it’s going to arrive,'” Webb writes. “Even though analysts widely expect iPhone X supplies to be limited early on, the device will still available in 55 countries and territories. Apple also expects to have the iPhone X in many stores on Nov. 3 and it said Tuesday that walk-in buyers should ‘arrive early.'”
“When customers order online, they don’t pay up front. Instead, Apple withdraws the cash when the iPhone is shipped,” Webb writes. “Investors and analysts will be able to monitor how the wait times for delivery develop in the course of Friday, giving insights into demand.”
MacDailyNews Take: Without knowing how many units Apple has amassed for November 3rd, good luck with that equation, investors and analysts!
“Given reported production bottlenecks, iPhone X delivery times will be four to six weeks by 8 a.m. New York time and should remain largely unchanged in the following days, said Gene Munster, a veteran Apple analyst and co-founder of VC firm Loup Ventures,” Webb writes. “Apple will report earnings Nov. 2, when it will also give guidance for the holiday quarter. Analysts expect revenue in those three months of $86 billion, up almost 10 percent from the same period a year earlier, indicating they don’t anticipate supply issues to burden sales.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We expect iPhone X delivery times to hit 4-6 weeks far sooner than 8am EDT. These things are going to sell out unbelievably quickly once preorders open at 12:01am PDT / 3:01am EDT on Friday, October 27th.
Not to mention that the Internet is going to melt down.
Note: iPhone X availability begins Friday, November 3rd, in Andorra, Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Guernsey, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, UAE, the UK, the US and US Virgin Islands.
I’m going to assume you meant OCTOBER 27, not November!
I think Apple will stick with the 4-6 week delivery timeframe and then push it back if preorders get ridiculous later. No way they are going to tell customers within the first hours of the preorder windown that they’ll be waiting 2-3 months.
promise 4 to 6, deliver in 3 to 4. Customer is extra thrilled!!
Here we go again. Apple is doomed if iPhone X fails to meet X number of pre-order expectations. Yes, crucial for Apple shareholders. Basically, they mean crucial to prevent Apple’s share price from tanking. Apple will eventually sell plenty of iPhone X units. How long it will take is an unknown.
Samsung has already started work on the Galaxy S9 which will supposedly be ready for the spring. I haven’t even heard about any sales numbers for the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy Note. I’ve heard shipment numbers but not sales. Not even guesses on how many were sold. Why are the numbers crucial only for Apple?
I would guess that since the iPhone remains a huge proportion of their revenue relative to any other company releasing devices, sales of any new iPhones are as a result more crucial for Apple than anyone else.
My alarm is set.