Electronista reports, “The explosion can largely be credited to Android’s popularity in the US… Whether or not Google’s partners can sustain this level of production and challenge larger incumbents like Apple and RIM isn’t certain. Apple has over 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders just for its launch day and isn’t including walk-in sales or third-party retailers; it also is shipping only to several countries in June. Shipments should expand in July and through the rest of the year.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Surely when Steve Jobs feels the time is right to buy out AT&T’s exclusive U.S. stranglehold and get on with things, he’ll make his move, right? After all, losing 160,000+ per day to fake iPhones with long-term contracts (not to mention the fake app investments that will work to keep people from buying real iPhones someday) must have some future cost that will eventually negate all of the wonderful advantages that being shackled to AT&T Mobility brings to Apple and U.S. iPhone users. Seriously, Steve, you could open the iPhone up to multiple U.S. carriers and then just have every Apple salesperson punch each iPhone buyer in the mouth, if you like inflicting unnecessary pain on us so much. We’d take a one-time shot to the kisser in place of all of the wasted time, dropped calls, and needless frustration.
A Windows-loving friend of mine has a “competing” smartphone, and it looks like a kindergartner designed it.
I think Apple is doing what it wants to do for now, which is to increase worldwide iPhone sales at steady manageable rate that provides the optimum combination of units sales and profit per unit.
Also, they may want to get the NC data center up and running before expanding the potential U.S. customer base to Verizon.
Andy Rubin never said 160,000 Android phones are sold every day. He said 160,000 devices are “activated”. Activated does not necessarily mean sold. For example, by simply turning the device on a user could be said to activate it.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/celebrating-android.html
So, extrapolating out, Google will sell 57 million phones by this time next year? cough * bullshit * cough.
maybe in China?
Would that be open source, loopy lump, spanky fish, dinky dongle or crispy data? I’m confused.
Leo Laporte buys 150,999 of them I hear.
HAHAHAHAHA!!! Stop it, I’m going to pee my pants! HAHAHAHAHA!!!
@chabig
Big difference between sold and activated. But, I seriously doubt that when I turn on my phone, anyone would consider it “activated” in the same sense that one activates phone service.
But, just the same, I seriously doubt the editors of Electronista care about niggling little details like that. If they did, they would retract that statement.
Google, on the other hand doesn’t care about the statement either because it sounds terrific for them.
So when will a credible member of the press (ducking as I write this) ask Google for proof? This seems so far out of bounds. Of course that also means that another 32,000 of these so called 160,000 phone are now totally open to app stealing their owner’s confidential data out and sending on to organized crime.
Its all part of Steve’s master plan. He knows every one of those android sales will mean a future “iPhone user for life”. Just as the best marketing OS X ever had was Vista, the pain of android will bring people to the iPhone.
So that 160,000 phones a day, how much money did Google make on those phones?
Google of course knows the exact number because it records all there WiFi packets.
Tim Rosencrans,
Bad plan. Once you lose them it’s much harder to switch them – especially if they buy a bunch of Android apps – than if you simply got them on their first smartphone. Steve should know better.
—
Doug,
Depends on how many ads Google ran on each phone.
Geez.
So there I was, happily following my rule to “not click on any MDN stories that have ‘AT&T;’ in the title.” Life was good. I suffered no exposure to tiresome, repetitious, barely-cogent rants about the eeeeevil carrier AT&T;, which uses some sort of supernatural power to force Apple to continue in their dastardly relationship, to the detriment of all mankind forever and ever.
Then I clicked on this article about Android sales. And suddenly realized I’d been suckered into clicking on another rant.
*sigh*
MDN = Whiny D Bags
They still keep trying to convince us readers that Steve doesn’t know what he’s doing and has no plan. Does MDN really expect us to believe that the man who brought an almost bankrupt company all the way back to the biggest tech company in the world is just coasting?
Get real MDN and take your head from out of your buttocks. Everything is going according to Steve’s plan.
And while we’re at it Google, “how many of those activated phones were given away for free?”
There is no way that number is right. There must have been a miscommunication somewhere along the way. There is NO WAY they’re anywhere close to that.
Android is almost exclusively a US operating system at the moment. A sales (or activation) pace of 160,000 per day would be, as g4dualie points out, almost 60 million phones in a year. That would mean every man, woman, and child in the US would own an Android phone within 5 years. Not happening. Not even close.
Good luck Google, you’re gonna need it. Apple is going to continue steamrolling the competition, including you.
* Written with joy from my beautiful new iPhone 4.
Apple can’t build enough iPhones for the present demand… Can’t sell what you can’t deliver…..
Everything is fine…. maximum profit on the present supply that can be built….. next year will be a different story….. especially with twice a year updates.
Meanwhile, IPods, iPads and Macs are selling like hotcakes too, so what more can you expect as 15B in quarterly sales is the new norm…..
So there are 160k people that are sad they didn’t get an iPhone every day.
I think we must first ask the question- “Who should run Apple? MDN or Steve Jobs?” Who would you trust?
I rest my case. Surely, Steve is aware of the situation, both short-term but especially long-term. I have always believe that he would settle for nothing less than worldwide domination, including the desktop war. I don’t believe he ever completely conceded to Microsoft. He’s got his own plan, and it looks like he’s succeeding.
I’d trust him. Things look grim in the real world, too, but i would not vote for MDN for president.
Don’t get me wrong- this site is one of my favorites because of the Mac/Apple community. But it’s flawed. And the rest of the world is also crazy.
NEWS FLASH!!!
54,786,530 trillion flies eat shit every day!
I find it interesting indeed, that MDN, who bashes Apple’s competition without mercy, would cave to a story like this. They must believe it to be true; that Android is selling like hot cakes because why else would they be pleading with Steve Jobs to do something before its too late.
How long before MDN begins calling this company, Apple ingrates, for not acting in their best interest?
@MDN
We’d take a one-time shot to the kisser in place of all of the wasted time, dropped calls, and needless frustration.
You don’t speak for me!
As much as I love Apple and SJ, no amount of ra-ra cheerleading and head-in-the-sand rationalization can undo the damage that has been done. This war is already over and once again, Apple has lost.
Facts are facts.
By the time iPhone5 rolls out how many different droid phones will there be on the market? 30? 50?
You can make the argument of fragmentation, but that means nothing at all. What’s important is hearts and minds. By this time next year, Android will be outselling iPhone. Period. And iPhone will have 1 new phone, 1 major update and 1 carrier still. Do the math.
We all know it. But the echo chamber says differently.
I think SJ has a blind spot. It’s that he believes that people want the finer things in life. And it is NOBLE of him to feel this way. To some degree he’s right. But many more people are willing to settle for good enough and follow the herd that is marketshare.
I posted something similar to this about six months ago, and was laughed out of the forum. Now I smell fear on MDN. They know it’s happening, they’re frustrated, as are we all. But who has the guts to admit it? Cue echo chamber.
I love Apple. I’ve spent thousands upon thousands on their products, and will continue to do so. However, this is m$ v Apple 2.0 all over again. And I fear that unless SJ can outsmart Google (a VILE company imho), then the herd will follow in the footsteps of M$ dictatorship once again, and bitch about spyware, malware, privacy concerns etc., but they will line up anyway to get abused a little. It’s the human condition. Stockholm syndrome is alive and well.
Ok, MDN editor, I like your takes, but AT&T;never gave me problems, ever, EVER!!!! The customer service is great too. By the way, other carriers drop their signal as much as AT&T;is claimed to, if not worse (i.e. Cricket, Boost).