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Math on iPhones Just Doesn't Add Up? 289

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the bad-math dept.
Tech Dirt is reporting that recently announced numbers by Apple and AT&T suggest that there is a large gap (1.7 million) between the number of iPhones being sold and those being activated. Taking into account factors like the iPhone launching outside the US and a 20% estimate of people buying the iPhone just for the purposes of unlocking, there are still 700,000 iPhones unaccounted for. "[...] suggesting that they're sitting on store shelves, piling up as unsold inventory. That number suggests at least some gap between perceived demand and actual demand -- while also raising questions about how much effort it will take to eat through that inventory."
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Math on iPhones Just Doesn't Add Up? More

Math on iPhones Just Doesn't Add Up?

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  • i know! (Score:5, Funny)

    by vanDrunen ( 1075573 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:22PM (#22185280) Homepage
    They all got blended:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI [youtube.com]

    • Re:i know! (Score:5, Funny)

      by flyingsquid ( 813711 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:35PM (#22185490)
      The Apple fanboys don't actually use them. They just stare, doe-eyed and utterly enraptured, at the sleek lucite and brushed aluminum, totally lost in the beauty of its industrial design. Occasionally they caress the device or whisper sweet nothings to it.

      • Re:i know! (Score:5, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:43PM (#22185588)
        my precious

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jellomizer ( 103300 ) *
        That brings up an interesting point...
        Perhaps some poeple who bought 2 Baught one to use and kept one in its origional package as a collectors item... Like some colectors do with Comics, or with some toys.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Like some colectors do with Comics, or with some toys.

          She's an ACTION FIGURE, you bastard!

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Nope. It's that nobody wants to do business with AT&T, which is the only phone service that will allow one to USE an iPhone.

        Yet.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tgd ( 2822 )
        Well it is good for surfing porn at work.

        (did I just say that?)

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by camperslo ( 704715 )
        There probably are some phones that people got as gifts over the holidays but haven't activated yet due to waiting for the contract with a prior carrier to run out.

        Another possible factor is that the numbers used may be an AT&T report of new customers, excluding people who were already using AT&T cell service before getting an iPhone.
        • I know for a fact that some have made it into mainland China. Don't know how many, but there are some going to other non-official countries.

      • Re:i know! (Score:5, Funny)

        by ContractualObligatio ( 850987 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @03:25PM (#22186188)
        Actually, I didn't even take mine out of the box. I know it was perfect the day Steve Jobs announced it, why sully it with the imperfect air which I breathe? Let it's perfection remain untarnished for ever more!

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by p0tat03 ( 985078 )
          You idiot, even the box is holy and must be protected! I filled an airtight plexiglass box with air from my local Apple Store (approved by The Jobs Himself!) and put my iPhone box in there. It must immerse in Steve's blessed air to maintain its perfection!

      • You know, I have no love for Apple (I actually hate the company), but I did buy an iPhone, because it has the best browser and best map application (I wanted a browser with a phone, not a phone with a browser).

        That said, I have to say one thing. The iPhone came in the nicest box and packaging I've ever seen. It's almost decadent, how thick the cardboard is and how nicely constructed it is. The iPhone comes cradled in this thick, thick, clear plastic holder. The manual came in an elegant black envelope. You have to see the thing to believe it.

        I seriously can't bring myself to throw it away. It's utterly useless at this point, but it's so nice, it feels like I'm being wasteful by putting in the trash.

        It actually gives me another reason to hate Apple. There is absolutely no reason that this box is necessary, and it really is a waste of resources. I think they used an entire tree to produce the box.

        • Re:i know! (Score:5, Insightful)

          by flappinbooger ( 574405 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @05:06PM (#22187592) Homepage
          Yeah, well, it's kinda like the difference between a key for a Ferrari vs the key for a Ford.

          Style, man. STYLE

          You may hate Apple for doing the box that way, but to ME, it shows a company going all out to make something the best they can possibly make it the moment the end user comes into contact with the product.

          Fine wine doesn't come in a plastic jug, does it? So, for Apple, a fine electronic device such as the iPhone should come in a nice box, too. Macs are expensive yet aren't the fastest computers out there, despite the hype. But you couldn't get a mac user to switch to a PC just because it was cheaper or faster. Why? I think it's the experience. Any Mac-o-philes care to chime in?

          No, I don't have an iphone, I don't own a mac, and I'm not a mac fanboy, either.

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by daBass ( 56811 )

            Macs are expensive yet aren't the fastest computers out there, despite the hype. But you couldn't get a mac user to switch to a PC just because it was cheaper or faster. Why? I think it's the experience. Any Mac-o-philes care to chime in?

            The most important reason for many people buying - and loving - Macs is Mac OS X, which indeed is the experience. But it doesn't stop there, a great design case helps too. You won't find any ports on the back of any Mac laptop (so annoying on Dells I have worked with) and y

    • Or Bricked (Score:5, Funny)

      by Skevin ( 16048 ) * on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:59PM (#22185818) Journal
      I work as a Construction Contractor for some rather extravagant celebrities*. One of my more indulgent clients asked what was the most expensive building materials I've ever seen. Well, I heard on Slashdot that unlocked iPhones make excellent bricks...

      Tomorrow, I'm getting my sixth truckload. The North Wing is almost complete, and then I'll start working on the guest house.

      * (just kidding, of course. I'm a working techie stiff just like everyone else here)

      Solomon
  • Iran and North Korea are buying them all up to make a cluster for weapons trajectory?

    Just kidding, but there was a story years ago about Iraq buying Playstation machines (and prior to that a story about the purchase of C64s) to use. The iPhone is the cool new thing.

    As a more serious one, perhaps a lot are being shipped overseas and unlocked for use there?

  • Ummmm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tgd ( 2822 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:24PM (#22185304)
    So is it really more likely there are 700,000 mysteriously missing iPhones, or perhaps the number of people buying them to unlock is higher than they think?

    Does the number of ATT activations also include the pre-paid plans, or just the contracts?

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by MouseR ( 3264 )
      Mine certainly is unlocked and jailbroken.

      And I have this [mac.com] to say to Apple and Jobs.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Internet Ronin ( 919897 )
      It almost certainly only include post-paid activations.

      When carriers report their subscriber numbers they focus almost exclusively, in the US anyways, on post-paid subscribers.

      You get a +1 insightful kudos sir, I hadn't considered this possibility until you mentioned it.

  • I have an idea.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ironcanuk ( 1022683 )
    How about Apple and Rogers getting together and selling those iPhones to us up here in Canada? We feel neglected!

  • You are right (Score:5, Interesting)

    by That's Unpossible! ( 722232 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:27PM (#22185346)
    The pundits math doesn't line up. What's the reason? They don't know what the fuck they are talking about.

    For example: "20% estimate of people buying the iPhone just for the purposes of unlocking, there are still 700,000 iPhones unaccounted for."

    OK, so then I guess maybe the 20% estimate is wrong? Horrors.

    What I do know for certain is that this discussion won't solve something that only Apple can answer.
    • So, if we knew for a fact that all of those 700,000 were unlocked, the estimate of unlocked phones would skyrocket to maybe 50% and we'd have no more unaccounted for phones, right?
    • Or the number of units sold != number of units in customers hands. When apple sells a shipment of iphones to a vendor, those are considered "sold" items under most circumstances. What this article tells me is that apple overestimated the demand for the iphone, and there are a lot of units (like 700,000) collecting dust on store shelves.
      • This article shouldn't tell you anything. It's useless drivel. If you like to hate Apple, you'll believe it because it makes Apple look bad. If you like Apple, you'll bash on the numbers. Regardless, it doesn't have any substance at all.

  • No worries (Score:3, Funny)

    by DaffyDuck101 ( 247015 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:27PM (#22185348)
    From the mouth of the great leader himself:

    Apple faithful, trust me on this. The phones are not lost. Okay? I just saw them, like, I don't know, last week. Or was it just before Macworld? Tim Cook is trying to find the paperwork because he says he knows we shipped them and he can totally remember seeing the invoices but now he can't remember where he put them but he swears they're around here someplace. Ja'Red is on the job too.
    http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/2008/01/so-were-missing-few-hundred-thousand.html [blogspot.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by drhamad ( 868567 )
      Fake Steve Jobs is far less funny now that we know who he really is.
    • And don't trot out the old thing about shareholders having a right to know, blah blah. That's bullshit. It's my company, and if you don't like the way I run it, sell your fucking shares. Okay? We straight on that?

      Awesome.

  • Fake Steve has a write-up [blogspot.com] on this (of course). If the phones have really been sold to the public, and aren't missing because of inflated numbers or internal sales, then this has really got to be hurting the bottom line. I believe that the phone contract subsidizes the hardware, and if people buy phones without contracts, Apple is losing money on each sale. 1.7 million phones winds up being a lot of money. The amount that each phone is subsidized is unknown, of course.
    • Actually, it had been said that the hardware in the iPhone costs 200$ or so. If that's true then Apple is not losing money on those unlocked iPhones.
      The share they get from ATT is just more profit.
      Also, the iPhone is said to have cost 150 million $ in development. Not such a big deal when they sell millions of them with a decent margin.

      There is a lot of speculation about this device, isn't there?
    • With the release of the iPod touch you should be able to figure out pretty closely how much an iPhone costs, because Apple definitely isn't selling the Touch at a loss. The iPhone is pretty much identical except for Bluetooth and cell chips, plus a microphone. All of which together are probably a few dollars.

      Apple isn't subsidizing iPhone hardware.

  • Enough anti-iPhone FUD to choke on... (Score:4, Informative)

    by illumin8 ( 148082 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:29PM (#22185400) Journal
    This anti-iPhone FUD is pretty crazy. It makes me wonder how many MS shills and bloggers they have on the payroll:

    "[...] suggesting that they're sitting on store shelves, piling up as unsold inventory. That number suggests at least some gap between perceived demand and actual demand -- while also raising questions about how much effort it will take to eat through that inventory."
    If you knew anything about Wall Street, Apple can't announce sales when they're sitting on store shelves. They can only announce sales when they've been sold to an actual customer.

    Surely some small percentage of phones are being unlocked, but did you ever stop to think that maybe the numbers are off because AT&T hasn't reported yet how many iPhone subscribers there are for December/January and there were probably tens of thousands of iPhones purchased as Christmas gifts that sat under a tree and just barely got activated in the last couple of weeks?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Buelldozer ( 713671 )
      What are you talking about?

      Both Sony and Microsoft have a well established, and documented, history of announcing shipped instead of sold numbers!

      Last I checked both are listed on the NYSE. Do MSFT and SNE ring any bells for you?

      • Re:Enough anti-iPhone FUD to choke on... (Score:5, Informative)

        by Sparohok ( 318277 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:55PM (#22185768)
        Both Sony and Microsoft have a well established, and documented, history of announcing shipped instead of sold numbers!

        You can announce whatever you want, the question is what you recognize as revenue. For that you need to ask an accountant.

        I'm not an accountant, but here's the basic principle. The important question is who is the customer and when a sale is made. If you sell a product to another company, such as a distributor or retail store, that's revenue, even if it hasn't been sold to their customer. If you ship a product to your own retail store, that's not revenue until it's sold to a customer.

        Then you get complexities like, what happens if the distributor has an agreement where they can require you to buy back unsold product? Does that mean the distributor's inventory should also be treated as your own inventory?

        That's why there's a genuinely interesting question about how many iPhones have really been sold to customers, and the truth may not be a simple matter of reading quarterly press releases from Apple and AT&T.

        Last I checked both are listed on the NYSE. Do MSFT and SNE ring any bells for you?

        Actually, MSFT is listed on Nasdaq, Sony is listed in Tokyo. SNE is a secondary listing (American Depository Receipt).

        Martin

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
          Then you get complexities like, what happens if the distributor has an agreement where they can require you to buy back unsold product? Does that mean the distributor's inventory should also be treated as your own inventory?

          I'm not a CPA though my BS focus was Accountancy (and it's been awhile)... The first thing that came to mind was to treat returns like a warranty account. Companies will come up with a % of sales they believe they will spend on warranty/returns and that will be part of the balance s

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by vux984 ( 928602 )
        Nintendo does too... but in their case shipped and sold happen to be the same number lately.

    • Re:Enough anti-iPhone FUD to choke on... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Attila Dimedici ( 1036002 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:41PM (#22185576)
      Actually, they can announce sales when they are sitting on store shelves, as long as those stores aren't part of the same corporate entity as is announcing sales. If the phones were sold to AT&T stores and are sitting on the shelves of the AT&T stores, Apple can count them as sold. If they are sitting on the shelves of Apple stores, then it depends on the corporate relationship between Apple stores and Apple itself (which I do not know, and don't care enough to look up).

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by MBCook ( 132727 )
        That's called channel stuffing, and Microsoft has done it quite a few times with the Zune, XBox, and XBox 360 in order to temporarily inflate the sales numbers. What happens is after you've done that, those stores don't need to order more for a while, so after your "great sales" period, you'll get a "low sales" period as the old units get cleared out.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Attila Dimedici ( 1036002 )
          Most manufacturers do it. Actually, it is one of those things that happens because it is hard to know how many units have been sold by the retailers who are not part of your company. Of course, many manufacturers further game this by giving incentives to retailers that encourage them to stock up on an item beyond what anyone expects them to sell at certain times to make the numbers look better for a particular report (figuring that no one will be paying attention to the next report). Additionally, the ma
          • Most manufacturers do it.

            This is business 101. Manufacturers do it because the store is their customer, not the end user. The end user is the customer of the store. The store buys the iPhone from Apple for cost $X. When the customer buys the iPhone from the store, Apple doesn't get that money, the store does. Only if the store has managed some sort of consignment arrangement (Walmart is reported to force these on weaker companies) does the manufacturer not get paid on delivery (actual terms very, but gene

            • My experience with this is in the book business. I was a bookstore manager for many years and a bookstore book buyer for several more. One of the games publishers would play would be to release a new big title and give the bookstores an additional large discount (say enough to make it worth ordering in 3 months supply, when I usually only ordered a weeks worth) if they would pre-order the book. Then the Monday after the book released on Friday they would issue a press release saying "we sold x copies of the

        • Re:Enough anti-iPhone FUD to choke on... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by illumin8 ( 148082 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @03:01PM (#22185856) Journal

          That's called channel stuffing, and Microsoft has done it quite a few times with the Zune, XBox, and XBox 360 in order to temporarily inflate the sales numbers. What happens is after you've done that, those stores don't need to order more for a while, so after your "great sales" period, you'll get a "low sales" period as the old units get cleared out.
          The only problem is that iPhones are only sold at two places: Apple stores and AT&T stores. Apple can't stuff their own channel because that wouldn't count as a sale. And do you think AT&T is stupid enough to take inventory of 700,000 phones at once? That would be bat-shit insane.
          • The only problem is that iPhones are only sold at two places: Apple stores and AT&T stores.

            Correct.

            Apple can't stuff their own channel because that wouldn't count as a sale.

            Unless the Apple Store is a separate corporate entity, which I'm pretty sure it is. Then that would count as a sale.

            And do you think AT&T is stupid enough to take inventory of 700,000 phones at once? That would be bat-shit insane.

            Then again, given the iPhone's perceived demand (spell that "hype"), Apple is in a position to prett

          • Re:Enough anti-iPhone FUD to choke on... (Score:5, Funny)

            by LearnToSpell ( 694184 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @04:29PM (#22187146) Homepage
            And do you think AT&T is stupid enough to take inventory of 700,000 phones at once?

            Having been on the phone with AT&T for the last four hours, yes, yes I do.
        • include "cooking the books" and "accounting fraud."

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by p0tat03 ( 985078 )

        then it depends on the corporate relationship between Apple stores and Apple itself

        Apple Stores are directly managed by Apple in their jurisdiction. (i.e. Apple Stores in California managed by Apple, Inc., Apple Stores in Canada managed by Apple Canada Inc.)

        All Apple Store employees work for Apple, Inc., not some "third party" subsidiary that was created to handle its retail presence.

        I think it's pretty safe to say that Apple can't count Apple Store inventory units as "sold".

    • They can only announce sales when they've been sold to an actual customer.

      Not true. The terms you're looking for are "sold in" vs "sold out". Sometimes "sold out" can be very difficult to know with any precision, because of the time it takes retailers to reorder and variance in their stocking levels. "sold in" (meaning goods went into the channel) is when the revenue is recognized, because the channel _is_ the customer, from the manufacturers perspective.

      Of course Apple also has their own retail stores and
    • Or maybe were RETURNED (or sold on Ebay or passed on like a fruit cake or just locked in a drawer) because the recepient has no desire to sign a contract for $100+/month.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by jandrese ( 485 )
        Where did this $100/month contract meme come from? This is the second time it has been posted in this thread alone and I can't figure out where it came from. The only thing I know for sure is that it didn't come from reality. The basic iPhone plan (the one that almost everybody would get unless they're a salesguy or a teenage girl) is $60/month. Still kinda high, but with unlimited data (most cell data plans are pure rape) it's not completely unreasonable. The idea is if you plunking down the big bucks

    • If you knew anything about Wall Street

      Reading the other posts in this story, it sounds like the only one who "doesn't know anything about Wall Street" is you. Care to justify your position with some evidence to support it?

    • This anti-iPhone FUD is pretty crazy. It makes me wonder how many MS shills and bloggers they have on the payroll:

      You don't have to be paid by Microsoft to find annoyance [dailymotion.com] in Apple's hype factory. It's just like you defending Apple even though you're not on their payroll.

      As others have pointed out, you're not so right that people would have to be paid to disagree with you.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by asc99c ( 938635 )
      With the possible exception of the phones sold in Apple stores, just how do you believe Apple knows when an iPhone is sold to a customer? All manufacturers talk about sales of items sold to stores. Apple might actually be able to get customer sales for the iPhone due to exclusivity contracts, but for iPods, they're sold everywhere. The shops that sell them are under no obligation to tell Apple when they've sold their stock.

  • Maybe... (Score:3, Funny)

    by niceone ( 992278 ) * on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:31PM (#22185434) Journal
    They've been pinched?

    (British joke only, I guess)

  • AT&T numbers are likely for iphone specific pl (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Que_Ball ( 44131 ) * on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:34PM (#22185482)
    I think the likely reason for the large difference is that AT&T is simply giving you a total number of users who activated a phone on the Specific iphone plans and it does not include users who are blending the data only plan addition with a regular voice plan.

    Many people will need more minutes than the regular iphone specific plans can deliver or wanted to keep their existing plan and simply add the iphone features to it.

    Or AT&T simply doesn't like paying Apple and they are looking for ways to under report the activations of iphones until after the customers window to cancel without penalties expire or something like that.

  • Click through and find the answer.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by grocer ( 718489 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:40PM (#22185562)
    Thumbs down on the blog link - the original CNet news story (link [news.com]) is much more detailed and has this tidbit - Based on the number of "missing" iPhones, each of the 4,400 worldwide iPhone retailers "had more than 150 units of channel inventory at the beginning of this year" which sure sounds like they're counting them F.O.B. from Apple's warehouse door, not when it's actually sold to a consumer.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by zen_sky ( 1157991 )
      Well, that's easy then. 4400*150=660,000. Apple said they are selling 20,000 iPhones a day, so that would be 600,000 per month. Soo I guess the channel is only "stuffed" for one month plus 10%. Not exactly excessive...

  • 2 million new customers or total? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by w3woody ( 44457 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:52PM (#22185714) Homepage
    I went poking around AT&T's investor relations site, and it seems to me (though I didn't spend a whole lot of time there) that the 2 million number is the number of new AT&T customers who switched to AT&T wireless because of the iPhone. This does not count customers (such as myself) who kept my existing service but switched devices (in my case, from a Motorola RAZR to an iPhone).

    If this is the case, it would explain a large amount of that gap.

    I think part of the problem here is that the major media would like to report that the iPhone is a dismal failure somehow--and channel stuffing (a'la Microsoft's channel stuffing of the Zune) is one way to paint this picture. However, given the number of units I've seen on the shelves at the various stores I've gone to, I cannot imagine that 30% of Apple's iPhone stock was stuffed into the channel: that would mean that every Apple and AT&T store would have a mountain of iPhones sitting in the corner, and I'm not seeing it.

  • Only 20% being unlocked? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Ehsan ( 606618 ) on Friday January 25, 2008 @02:52PM (#22185728)
    I'm currently working in Dubai, and I know about 20 people who use unlocked iPhones. I also see people with iPhones everywhere I go, as they are sold in all the phone shops here (unlocked, of course). I also know a lot of people in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain who are using them... and the Middle East accounts for one of the highest numbers of mobile users anywhere in the world. So why do they estimate only 20% of iPhones being unlocked? I always thought it was closer to 50%
    • It could be different areas have different states of unlock. This would lead to the percentage being somewhere between the two extreme ends (low and high % of unlock). I'd imagine this would be the case and possibly Dubai is on the high end (meaning the average is somewhere below it).
  • How can they be sold but still setting on store shelves? Unless there's a major shipping backlog sold phones are sold phones and wouldn't count as inventory. Probably more than estimated have at least tried to unlock them but this sounds more like a math error as well as underestimating unlocked iPhones. The quote just doesn't make sense.
  • Let me get this straight: if we pull a number like 20% out of our ass, as our estimate for part of the accounting, then not all the phones are accounted for. Here's a tip: maybe a different completely arbitrary number will work better than the first completely arbitrary number.

  • Crazy People. (Score:4, Funny)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) * on Friday January 25, 2008 @03:06PM (#22185912)
    1. Colectors buy one keep the seconds in its origional package.
    2. Horders buy as many as possible and sell them on ebay.
    3. Short attention span. They bought one but never decided to use it.
    4. Stupid People. They couldn't figure out how to use it.
    5. Loose recepts. Broken or didn't like it but never returned it.
    6. Like to break things. Will it blend what makes it tick.
    7. Uninformed after spending $600 on a phone they realize their home has no Cell reception
    8. Competitors buy the phone and study it for its secrets.
    9. Compulsive cleaning spouce. New Toy left in the wrong spot got tossed.
    10. Enemies a person is jelious that you just got an iPhone... Have it dissapar.
    11. Kids... Shiny... Small... Toilet... Nuff said.
    12. Gifts that were never open.
    I bet more too.
  • I just found 700,000 iPhones hidden under my AT&T bill.
  • So apple sells direct to customers... what if they treat ATT as a "customer" that buys a few hundred thousand phones. So apple has "sold" those phones to ATT and they expect to sell those phones - but given the gulf between the sales and the activations it seems that ATT is not in fact, selling those phones.

  • There are 1351 iPhones on eBay [ebay.com] right now. Most of them are unlocked. Some of the sellers have hundreds of iPhones. [ebay.com] So a sizable chunk of that unsold inventory is over on eBay.

    It's like the early days of the PS3, when eBay sellers overbought and there was soon a glut of the things on eBay for months, selling below retail.

  • The only iPhone I've actually held in my hand was not activated. My nephew got it during an internship, when that ended, the AT&T account was terminated and they let him keep it. It's just sleeping, waiting for the day he feels like paying to use it. But it's not in any inventory anywhere.
  • Did you know that iPhones are found in hipbones?

    (subtle...)

  • Apple's worst business skill has always been estimating demand and managing supply to meet it. That's one main reason corporations never adopted Macs: if they hire 1500 new people, what if Apple's supply chain has a slowdown at that time? The single source of Macs through Apple alone made that bottleneck a defining problem in planning to use Macs in IT. Even as recently as this decade, the iMac/iPod Era, Apple has continued to brag about demand outstripping supply, leaving "empty shelves" after product intr
  • there estimate could be wrong.

    really, how hard is it to find out how many sold?
  • I have an iPhone. Now I know about the tendency of "after you buy a Ford, there seem to be a lot more Fords around", but even taking that into account, I see more iPhones than I expected to around Boston, especially on the T. I'd say the only single device I notice more of are Sidekicks.

    Boston might not be representative, but given that it's a pretty pricey thing, I'm impressed with its marketing inroads already. (I'm also impressed with how much new functionality the upgrades have been adding)
  • The story is void of facts. One paragraph declaring Apple iPhone sales don't add up? Is that all they've got? The MySpace story above this one has more value than this.

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