“I’ve been reporting about all the hand-wringing on Wall Street regarding the news that a million or so folks are using unlocked iPhones. The more I think about it, the more I think the hand-wringers have it all wrong,” Peter Burrows reports for BusinessWeek.
Burrows reports, “Here’s why: Their concern is that Apple is losing out on the rivers of pure profit that come from the cut of monthly cellular charges Apple has wrung out of its carrier partners, particularly AT&T. Depending which analyst you talk to, that’s $168 million to $400 million per million iPhones that Apple is missing out on.”
“So how can that be good? Because the vast majority of those one million consumers are in places where Apple hasn’t even set up shop—places with a lot more prospective iPhone customers (China, India, Brazil, Russia, Canada) than there are in the countries where the iPhone is officially on sale (the US, the UK, France and Germany). In other words, there are hundreds of thousands of people—I’d guess 750,000—that are so desperate to buy the product that they’re willing to pay jacked up prices to get a hacked iPhone that comes with no warrantee, so support from Apple and not all of its key features turned on. And these stalwart fans will act as shock troops for Apple’s coming global expansion—providing countless dollars of free marketing as they show off their iPhones to their more mainstream friends,” Burrows reports.
Burrows reports, “Says RBC Capital analyst Mike Abramsky, ‘Despite all the pessimism, it’s hard not to look at this as a leading indicator of great global demand.’ Explain again to me how this is a bad thing?”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “qka” for the heads up.]
Recipe for success: Cash out at the end of the year with big gains and then get back in at obscenely low prices after scaring away the ignorant. Lather, rinse, repeat. All of the big mutual fund managers must be back in now. So, it’s time to resume telling the truth and let Apple stock roll again.
