“Shoppers looking to buy Apple Inc.’s new iPhone 7 smartphones on Friday better have ordered ahead,” Alex Webb and Mark Gurman report for Bloomberg. “Brisk demand left some stores sold out, leaving those who purchased online with the best chance to get their hands on the latest models — and some resorting to extreme measures.”
“Apple made several changes to its flagship product — the new iPhones feature camera upgrades, a faster processor, longer battery life and a new water and dust-resistant design. But their size and shape aren’t that different from the iPhone 6 line, apart from one key change: the removal of the headphone jack,” Webb and Gurman report. “That doesn’t seem to have deterred customers showing up on Friday on the first day of sales.”
“The challenge for Apple now, as in years past, is making sure there are enough of the gadgets to meet demand. Customers who hadn’t pre-ordered the larger iPhone 7 Plus models will be unable to buy them in Apple stores Friday, the company said earlier this week,” Webb and Gurman report. “That’s already leading to black-market tactics. Men outside the Convent Garden store were seen exchanging wads of cash to buy handsets from somebody who had ordered ahead.”
“T-Mobile US Inc. and Sprint Corp. said this week that pre-orders for the new models were almost four times as great as for previous models, helping drive Apple stock to its highest level in almost five years,” Webb and Gurman report. “Ben Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies, said Apple could sell 75 million to 76 million iPhones in the December quarter, which would be year-over-year growth, but supply constraints could prevent that.”
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MacDailyNews Take: Ignoring the iPad 2 fiasco, nobody can ramp up like Apple, especially in a crucial holiday quarter.