“The jury is still out on whether Apple Inc.’s iPhone will be a commercial success, Verizon Wireless’ General Counsel Steve Zipperstein said Wednesday,” Dow Jones reports. “Testifying before a House Telecommunications Subcommittee hearing into the future of the wireless industry, Zipperstein acknowledged that the company was approached by Apple before AT&T Inc. was about being the exclusive supplier of phone service for the new device. ‘We didn’t view it as the right opportunity for us at that time,’ he said.”
“Zipperstein said that it was too early to tell whether the iPhone would ultimately be a success in the market,” Dow Jones reports.
“‘Despite the hype about the iPhone in the media over the last couple of weeks, the product has only been available for the last 10 days,’ said Zipperstein. ‘The jury is still out and we will have to see how the market reacts.’ According to reports, nearly 1 million iPhones have been sold in its first 10 days. Apple has set a public target of selling 10 million devices by the end of the year,” Dow Jones reports.
MacDailyNews Note: Apple has set a public target of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008, not by the end of this year. Apple has not reported any iPhone unit sales figures to date.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Dion” and “Mike in Helsinki” for the heads up.]
Must be OJ’s jury.
The peak quarterly run rate on iPod shows Apple willing to financially commit to a capital obligation of 1.5 million units per week.
They have slow quarters requiring an iPod run rate of 250,000 units a week.
Let’s pretend for a moment they hoped to deliver 10,000,000 units in 75 weeks. 130,000 units a week? The most media-hyped device of the millenium? 130,000 a week? Are you serious?
TIme to call this hand. The first press release is gonna come when they sell unit 10,000,000. The run rate will be more than 500,000 per week. Guys like Zipperstein know the game changer when he sits down at the table.
Strictly business.
..over on the driving green were a group corporate yuppies in golf shoes, eyeing each others Ralph Lauren logos, pulling iPhones out of their corporate casuals. Squatting nearby was a bohemian tech junkie defecating on the pretty grass …an iPhone balanced on one knee. Both were signs of iPhones success which is a foregone conclusion ..it’s just a question of bigger vs very bigger.
10 million by MacWorld in January 2008.
>MDN wrote: Apple has not reported any iPhone unit sales figures to date.
And this dispels the title of the article how?
Isn’t Verizon the music industries great Microsoft hope to unseat iTunes.
They have their V Cast music service. I read that it lets you download a song to your phone for $1.99 or to you computer for $.99. Shouldn’t the prices be the other way around? Why would you reward users for downloading songs to their computers, which is the main vector for pirating?
There was a Verizon booth in a nearby Circuit City and I had my iPhone with me. They asked if they could take a look at it. I said yes and here were their words….
“Damn, that looks sweet”
and the kicker “We (Verizon) screwed up”.
’nuff said
The real debate is did Steve Jobs mean the end of fiscal year 2008 (Oct. 2008) or calender year?
More than two million already sold.
You all forget the online sales. Everybody counts the store sales from the AT&T and Apple. Apple can produce these iPhones Millions per month.
I like the quote
“We didn’t view it as the right opportunity for us at that time,”
May I suggest a word for you Mr. Zipperstein, “Foresight”.
Those greedy control-freak fools at Verizon… I could have the iPhone right now if they’d made the right decision! If it wasn’t for the discount I get from work, I would be so out of there.
One thing that the jury is not still out on is that Steve Zipperstein has his head way up his ass….
Since the AT&T employee let the “million iPhones out of the bag…Apple just instead decided to wait until 2 million to report…or maybe just wait until the quarterly results. Either the numbers are not up to par or the numbers are so dramatically high and I seriously doubt the numbers are not up to par. Why report one million when you can wait a little and report two million. First silence…then “boom”. Get ready, Ballmer.
Ballmers combover is gonna stand on end and braid itself in embarrassment when the iPhone numbers come in.
1 million units / activations at a minimum of $59 each per month = 59 million a month minimum. NSA, I’d pass too…
10 million will only happen if the prices drop to $299 for the 4GB and $399 for the 8GB. Apple still makes a nice profit on that price as well.
Sorry correction, NSA should have been Naa.
(Gotta watch that iPhone auto correct!)
Anecdotal story time.
Last night I took my daughter to the midnight opening of the new Harry Potter movie. We go in the theater 2 hours ahead of time with 300 other excited teens and preteens, and a number of parents. The theater quickly filled up and 90% of the people in the room passed the time playing with a personal digital device of some kind.
I pulled out the iPhone and started to surf the web. For the next two hours I was inundated with questions, mostly from adults, but also from teens. You could hear people whispering all around “iphone, iphone.”
At least here in socal there is still a huge pent up demand. The mission viejo store continues to sell out. While purchasing mine last tue the manager let it slip that they had gotten their 3rd shipment, qty 100 phones, and he expected to sell out by 11am that same day.
Damn, I wish I had some extra $$ to get more Apple Stock.
Verizon CEO to his grandkids…I caught the big one and I let it get away…you’ll have to earn your own money for college!
Blackberry CEO to his grandkids…I got the bighead and didn’t take the iPhone seriously…your inheritance has just been revoked!
I always wondered what happened to Saddam Hussein’s Information Minister.
I see he has escaped criminal prosecution, dusted off his law degree, changed his name and works for Verizon…
“The jury is still out” – unbelievable.
Jim -TV…..it sounds like you were welcomed to the social. Once again Apple succeeds where MS fails.
The whole reason for Verizon’s refusal of carrying the iPhone was an issue of control. Steve Jobs wanted too much control over the device and even the carrier network (not to mention many of the profits) which Verizon couldn’t abide by.
It may have been a big mistake, but Verizon was able to keep control over what they sell. It worked out good for the Apple and iPhone because they were able to find someone else willing to step up and carry the iPhone with all of Apple’s conditions. It also forced AT&T to step up their EDGE coverage and still make a lot of sales which was a big benefit to us.
Our Mac users group featured a demo of the iPhone last Monday night. The EDGE connection was actually a lot faster than the free WiFi connection that we had. Yes, things look pretty good for the iPhone.
I was at the Verizon store half way through June to make an adjustment to my cellphone plan. While I waited 35 minutes for customer disservice, I looked at the plastic clamshells, and the rectangles with tiny button keyboards, and one line went through my head – “You are sooooo screwed!” I wanted to adjust my minutes down to save money before terminating the contract for the iPhone. Oh, sure, they said, we can set you up with a smaller minutes per month plan, but you’ll have to sign a new 2 year contract. That’s the way they are responding to the iPhone threat, by putting a tighter stranglehold on customers. I politely rejected their offer, more set than ever to get the iPhone as soon as I possibly could. Even paying the $175 early termination fee, the new AT&T plan will give me more, and charge me less, than Verizon. Instead of the pathetic drivel the Chief Counsel offered, he should have looked at the committee chair and said “How will it affect Verizon? We are SOOOO screwed!”
I realize that Steve Jobs said “by the end of next year“, and that we can’t be certain if he meant ‘calendar’ or ‘fiscal’, but they don’t even need to sell half a million a week to shove 10 million out the door by the end of this calendar year. 350,000 will do the trick just fine.
I wonder … will Verizon own up to “it’s settled” should that happen? Or just stop giving interviews.
DLMeyer – the Voice of G.L.Horton’s Stage Page Pod-Cast
And religious authorities in the 1800s said the disease wasn’t caused by microorganisms, but was caused by evil spirits. Consider the source. Carl Sagan said people should look skeptically at all claims of knowledge and authority. Verizon doesn’t mean crap to me.
@BallonGuy:
Restarting the clock on your contract has been the SOP for changing the terms on Verizon service for at least two years. I remember it being in place when I signed up with Verizon, almost exactly two years ago. (Perfect timing – I can jump ship for the iPhone any time I want! Neener-neener!)