7 ms·

Can anyone put that into context?

by ugh 15y ago

walldorf 15y ago
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/06/28iPhone-4-Sales-Top-1-7-Million.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/06/28iPhone-4-Sales-Top...
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
scrrr 15y ago
According to http://www.phonearena.com/news/iPhone-4-sales-hit-a-million-units-over-the-first-weekend_id17160 http://www.phonearena.com/news/iPhone-4-sales-hit-a-million-... AT&T sold 1.7 million units on the first weekend. I wonder if Steve Jobs being dead actually is a reason for increased sales. It could be like a singer dying and people buy more of his records. On the other hand it might be just that many people held back buying the iphone 4 and waited for the next one.
- mcphilip 15y ago
  I too wonder the same thing. Especially with the pre-order record for a phone that seemed to initially miss expectations upon announcement. The articles I've found on the topic are just speculative[1][2]. [1]http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/228095/20111010/iphone-4s-fortunes-linked-to-steve-jobs-untimely-death-loyal-apple-customers-drive-iphone-4s-sales-a.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/228095/20111010/iphone-4s-fo... [2]http://sanfrancisco.ibtimes.com/articles/228902/20111011/iphone-4s-sold-out-pre-order-record-memory-steve-jobs.htm http://sanfrancisco.ibtimes.com/articles/228902/20111011/iph...
  - epo 15y ago
    The missed expectations were held by fanboy contributors to MacRumors and the equally witless anti-fanboys (fandroids for the most part) who chimed in with "Ha! No new case after 18 months? Lame! Fail!" Perhaps the buyers were at the end of a contract, or looking to upgrade, or simply saw the best phone on the market.
    - glhaynes 15y ago
      And tons of guy-on-the-street types (both real and those dreamed up by news media, propagating the meme further) were disappointed, too. But the frame has shifted over the last few days and now everybody's talking about Siri, theoretical teardrop case be damned.
- technoslut 15y ago
  I don't think there are many people who are going to spend $200+ and a two-year contract on a device just because of Jobs. iOS devices have continually seen 100% year-over-year growth so it's not really a surprise, especially when they're available on more carriers.
- ap3 15y ago
  I think it's all the people with 3GS's plus new customers jumping on to the iphone and more carriers. Numbers seem to support that. I was on a dumbphone contract on verizon and waited on the iphone 4 until the 4s was released. Personally I wanted an iphone and would have bought on any form factor they released
- glhaynes 15y ago
  Not sure why this is being downvoted - I mean, it could've probably been phrased more tactfully, but I'm the biggest Jobs (and iPhone) fan in the world and I have to agree they've gotten a ton of publicity and awareness recently. (And I don't think Jobs—who almost seemed to identify more with Apple than with Steve Jobs!—would have been bothered by that in the least.) That leading to some sales isn't surprising. And it's a damn good phone.
- jeswin 15y ago
  I don't know why you are being down voted. Did you wonder if the increased media exposure for the company may have had an impact on sales? In a thread that otherwise feels like a chatroom, what made the comment particularly unacceptable? Sadly, this is becoming more common on HN. Have seen this in the evolution of /., before it got completely overrun.
- ethank 15y ago
  Sure, because a 200-800 dollar spend is how we honor fallen CEO's. When a band breaks up or a musician dies, the run on music is to the tune of 9.99, and usually less because they sell them as loss leaders.
MrFoof 15y ago
On launch weekend, the iPhone 4 sold 1.7M units in five countries. The iPhone 4S sold > 4.0M units in seven countries (the additions being Canada and Australia). The iPhone 4 launch countries had a combined population of ~644 million. The iPhone 4S launch countries had a combined population of ~700 million -- only an 8.7% increase. So the additional launch countries alone wouldn't explain the vastly increased number of sales (~135% increase). At least from personal experience, most Apple Retail Stores didn't seem to exhaust their supply on Friday the 14th. So having more units on hand (and the usual second round of deliveries on Saturday), plus the pre-order records contributed to breaking this record. Simply having the product available was probably the biggest factor, though pre-orders (confirmation tomorrow) do indicate that demand may have increased over the iPhone 4, although some of that that could be seasonal demand. I'm not sure on carrier counts (iPhone 4 not known, iPhone 4S launched on 22 carriers). In the US, the iPhone 4 only launched on one carrier, whereas the 4S launched on three. That's also going to be a significant contributing factor in increasing its effective availability to buyers.
- ugh 15y ago
  It would also be interesting to look at the growth of iPhone 4 sales. I know that they were growing like crazy in the quarters after the launch. But it's hard to compare. Sales numbers right after the launch are certainly always an outlier so it might be more reasonable to wait for the following quarterly results.
- batiudrami 15y ago
  Availability is a big thing, I think. For about 5 months after the iPhone launched in Australia, we couldn't keep enough of them in stock (have a box arrive Friday, all gone by Saturday arvo and none for the rest of the week). With the 4S, we have a hundred of the damn things sitting on our shelves. If it's a similar thing in other countries, then that's probably a large part of why (vodafoneAU staff here).
  - qq66 15y ago
    That's because all the manufacturing tooling for the 4S form factor has had 18 months to scale up since the launch of the 4. That's why Apple changed as little as possible in the physical form factor.
spicyj 15y ago
walldorf's link puts iPhone 4 sales over the same period as 1.7 million; that's 2.3x as much.
- josteink 15y ago
  On three times as many US carriers though. That's quite a bit of a difference, given how carrier-availability seems to dictate phone purchases in the US.
  - martingordon 15y ago
    Your point stands, but three times as many US carriers is really only 2.5x as many subscribers; AT&T and Verizon each have about 100 million subs and Sprint has 51 million. Increases in non-US availability notwithstanding, the 2.5x increase in US availability is close to the 2.3x increase in sales. I would expect AT&T sales to be down from the iPhone 4 and Verizon/Sprint to be up. Sprint likely offered early upgrades to most customers who want an iPhone in order to keep them from going to Verizon or AT&T. There's probably a lot of pent up demand on Verizon from users who skipped the mid-cycle CDMA iPhone 4 in hopes of a newer iPhone a few months later. On the flip side, AT&T has been a lot stricter about early upgrades this year, leaving many who spend less than $100/month without a full subsidy until November. This is different from their past policy, where early adopter of the previous-gen iPhone users were granted early upgrades.
cubicle67 15y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPhone_sales_per_quarter.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPhone_sales_per_quarter.s... Microsoft's Kinect currently holds the record for Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device. It sold 8 million in the first 60 days at a rate of about 134,000/day [Edit: source http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Kinect-Confirmed-As-Fastest-Selling-Consumer-Electronics-Device/blog/3376939/7691.html http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Kinect-Confirmed-...]
- onemoreact 15y ago
  4QFY10 they sold: 14,100,000 unit's which is a little over 4million a month. If apple sells over 2million a month for the next 50 days they will break 8 million in the first 60 days or am I missing something?
bonzoesc 15y ago
It's about what Motorola sells in a quarter: http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/31/the-end-of-easy-growth-in-smartphones/ http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/31/the-end-of-easy-growth-in-s... And assuming they're evenly split between 16GB and 32GB (it's not, there's also 64GB models in the mix), it's over a billion dollars in revenue before carrier subsidies.
- jonknee 15y ago
  > it's over a billion dollars in revenue before carrier subsidies. And considering that Apple doesn't care about the subsidies (they get paid up front), it's a whole lot of revenue.
  - jevinskie 15y ago
    How does ATT get their subsidy then? Apple pays them a cut of the retail price of the iPhone?
    - bonzoesc 15y ago
      AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint pay Apple an undisclosed sum of money for each carrier-locked and two-year-contracted iPhone sold.
    - jonknee 15y ago
      It's AT&T's subsidy. They pay retail (or very close to it) for the phones. They a $199 iPhone, but pay $649 for it. Apple books revenues for sales over time so they may not get it all up front (they're at least not realizing all the revenue up front), but the sale is worth the $649 value regardless of whether it was sold off contract or not.
- culturestate 15y ago
  It's actually in the neighborhood of $2.8 billion in revenue. (2000000 * 649)+(2000000 * 749) = 2,796,000,000
  - 15y ago
niklas_a 15y ago
Imagine that Timmy and Jimmy are selling lemonade on the street outside of their parents´ houses. Timmy and Jimmy are both selling three to four cups of lemonade every day. Every few days they increase the amount of sugar in their lemonade and put up signs that they now are selling a new type of lemonade. This usually brings in lots of new people, but some are starting to get confused as both Timmy and Jimmy are selling so many different brands of lemonade. Now Lisa moves into the block. She spends some time in her garage trying different lemonade flavors until she finds one she really likes herself. Then she goes out on the street to sell the lemonade. People really like Lisa's lemonade. Its taste is distinctly different from Timmy's and Jimmy's. People start telling their friends about Lisa's lemonade! Soon people from the other block are starting to take the two minute bicycle ride just to get Lisa's lemonade! When Lisa after a few weeks introduces a slightly refined version of her new lemonade she sells as much lemonade in an afternoon as Timmy and Jimmy together sell in a month! After a while Timmy and Jimmy get angry. One night Timmy sneaks over and steals some of Lisa's lemonade. He moves his stand right next to Lisa's and even put up a sign saying "Lisa's lemonade" on his stand. The next day he shows up wearing Lisa's clothes. Some of the customers get confused and accidentally but Timmy's lemonade instead of Lisa's. Lisa goes home and cries to mommy. The parents get together and decide to ban Timmy from selling lemonade out on the street. How's that for context?
- superchink 15y ago
  Fantastic. Thank you for that unexpectedly wonderful metaphor. I especially like the part about Sam—er, Timmy getting told on by Lisa. She's so crafty. :)
- cooldeal 15y ago
  So Samsung steals iPhone and iPad stock from the factories (since they make some of the parts) and slaps a Samsung sticker on them and sells them. I get it now.

Can anyone put that into context?

by ugh 15y ago

Can anyone put that into context?

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/06/28iPhone-4-Sales-Top-1-7-Million.html http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/06/28iPhone-4-Sales-Top...

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

scrrr 15y ago

According to http://www.phonearena.com/news/iPhone-4-sales-hit-a-million-units-over-the-first-weekend_id17160 http://www.phonearena.com/news/iPhone-4-sales-hit-a-million-... AT&T sold 1.7 million units on the first weekend. I wonder if Steve Jobs being dead actually is a reason for increased sales. It could be like a singer dying and people buy more of his records. On the other hand it might be just that many people held back buying the iphone 4 and waited for the next one.

mcphilip 15y ago
I too wonder the same thing. Especially with the pre-order record for a phone that seemed to initially miss expectations upon announcement. The articles I've found on the topic are just speculative[1][2]. [1]http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/228095/20111010/iphone-4s-fortunes-linked-to-steve-jobs-untimely-death-loyal-apple-customers-drive-iphone-4s-sales-a.htm http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/228095/20111010/iphone-4s-fo... [2]http://sanfrancisco.ibtimes.com/articles/228902/20111011/iphone-4s-sold-out-pre-order-record-memory-steve-jobs.htm http://sanfrancisco.ibtimes.com/articles/228902/20111011/iph...
- epo 15y ago
  The missed expectations were held by fanboy contributors to MacRumors and the equally witless anti-fanboys (fandroids for the most part) who chimed in with "Ha! No new case after 18 months? Lame! Fail!" Perhaps the buyers were at the end of a contract, or looking to upgrade, or simply saw the best phone on the market.
  - glhaynes 15y ago
    And tons of guy-on-the-street types (both real and those dreamed up by news media, propagating the meme further) were disappointed, too. But the frame has shifted over the last few days and now everybody's talking about Siri, theoretical teardrop case be damned.
technoslut 15y ago
I don't think there are many people who are going to spend $200+ and a two-year contract on a device just because of Jobs. iOS devices have continually seen 100% year-over-year growth so it's not really a surprise, especially when they're available on more carriers.
ap3 15y ago
I think it's all the people with 3GS's plus new customers jumping on to the iphone and more carriers. Numbers seem to support that. I was on a dumbphone contract on verizon and waited on the iphone 4 until the 4s was released. Personally I wanted an iphone and would have bought on any form factor they released
glhaynes 15y ago
Not sure why this is being downvoted - I mean, it could've probably been phrased more tactfully, but I'm the biggest Jobs (and iPhone) fan in the world and I have to agree they've gotten a ton of publicity and awareness recently. (And I don't think Jobs—who almost seemed to identify more with Apple than with Steve Jobs!—would have been bothered by that in the least.) That leading to some sales isn't surprising. And it's a damn good phone.
jeswin 15y ago
I don't know why you are being down voted. Did you wonder if the increased media exposure for the company may have had an impact on sales? In a thread that otherwise feels like a chatroom, what made the comment particularly unacceptable? Sadly, this is becoming more common on HN. Have seen this in the evolution of /., before it got completely overrun.
ethank 15y ago
Sure, because a 200-800 dollar spend is how we honor fallen CEO's. When a band breaks up or a musician dies, the run on music is to the tune of 9.99, and usually less because they sell them as loss leaders.

MrFoof 15y ago

On launch weekend, the iPhone 4 sold 1.7M units in five countries. The iPhone 4S sold > 4.0M units in seven countries (the additions being Canada and Australia). The iPhone 4 launch countries had a combined population of ~644 million. The iPhone 4S launch countries had a combined population of ~700 million -- only an 8.7% increase. So the additional launch countries alone wouldn't explain the vastly increased number of sales (~135% increase). At least from personal experience, most Apple Retail Stores didn't seem to exhaust their supply on Friday the 14th. So having more units on hand (and the usual second round of deliveries on Saturday), plus the pre-order records contributed to breaking this record. Simply having the product available was probably the biggest factor, though pre-orders (confirmation tomorrow) do indicate that demand may have increased over the iPhone 4, although some of that that could be seasonal demand. I'm not sure on carrier counts (iPhone 4 not known, iPhone 4S launched on 22 carriers). In the US, the iPhone 4 only launched on one carrier, whereas the 4S launched on three. That's also going to be a significant contributing factor in increasing its effective availability to buyers.

ugh 15y ago
It would also be interesting to look at the growth of iPhone 4 sales. I know that they were growing like crazy in the quarters after the launch. But it's hard to compare. Sales numbers right after the launch are certainly always an outlier so it might be more reasonable to wait for the following quarterly results.
batiudrami 15y ago
Availability is a big thing, I think. For about 5 months after the iPhone launched in Australia, we couldn't keep enough of them in stock (have a box arrive Friday, all gone by Saturday arvo and none for the rest of the week). With the 4S, we have a hundred of the damn things sitting on our shelves. If it's a similar thing in other countries, then that's probably a large part of why (vodafoneAU staff here).
- qq66 15y ago
  That's because all the manufacturing tooling for the 4S form factor has had 18 months to scale up since the launch of the 4. That's why Apple changed as little as possible in the physical form factor.

spicyj 15y ago

walldorf's link puts iPhone 4 sales over the same period as 1.7 million; that's 2.3x as much.

josteink 15y ago
On three times as many US carriers though. That's quite a bit of a difference, given how carrier-availability seems to dictate phone purchases in the US.
- martingordon 15y ago
  Your point stands, but three times as many US carriers is really only 2.5x as many subscribers; AT&T and Verizon each have about 100 million subs and Sprint has 51 million. Increases in non-US availability notwithstanding, the 2.5x increase in US availability is close to the 2.3x increase in sales. I would expect AT&T sales to be down from the iPhone 4 and Verizon/Sprint to be up. Sprint likely offered early upgrades to most customers who want an iPhone in order to keep them from going to Verizon or AT&T. There's probably a lot of pent up demand on Verizon from users who skipped the mid-cycle CDMA iPhone 4 in hopes of a newer iPhone a few months later. On the flip side, AT&T has been a lot stricter about early upgrades this year, leaving many who spend less than $100/month without a full subsidy until November. This is different from their past policy, where early adopter of the previous-gen iPhone users were granted early upgrades.

cubicle67 15y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPhone_sales_per_quarter.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPhone_sales_per_quarter.s... Microsoft's Kinect currently holds the record for Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device. It sold 8 million in the first 60 days at a rate of about 134,000/day [Edit: source http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Kinect-Confirmed-As-Fastest-Selling-Consumer-Electronics-Device/blog/3376939/7691.html http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Kinect-Confirmed-...]

onemoreact 15y ago
4QFY10 they sold: 14,100,000 unit's which is a little over 4million a month. If apple sells over 2million a month for the next 50 days they will break 8 million in the first 60 days or am I missing something?

bonzoesc 15y ago

It's about what Motorola sells in a quarter: http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/31/the-end-of-easy-growth-in-smartphones/ http://www.asymco.com/2011/07/31/the-end-of-easy-growth-in-s... And assuming they're evenly split between 16GB and 32GB (it's not, there's also 64GB models in the mix), it's over a billion dollars in revenue before carrier subsidies.

jonknee 15y ago
> it's over a billion dollars in revenue before carrier subsidies. And considering that Apple doesn't care about the subsidies (they get paid up front), it's a whole lot of revenue.
- jevinskie 15y ago
  How does ATT get their subsidy then? Apple pays them a cut of the retail price of the iPhone?
  - bonzoesc 15y ago
    AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint pay Apple an undisclosed sum of money for each carrier-locked and two-year-contracted iPhone sold.
  - jonknee 15y ago
    It's AT&T's subsidy. They pay retail (or very close to it) for the phones. They a $199 iPhone, but pay $649 for it. Apple books revenues for sales over time so they may not get it all up front (they're at least not realizing all the revenue up front), but the sale is worth the $649 value regardless of whether it was sold off contract or not.
culturestate 15y ago
It's actually in the neighborhood of $2.8 billion in revenue. (2000000 * 649)+(2000000 * 749) = 2,796,000,000
- 15y ago

niklas_a 15y ago

Imagine that Timmy and Jimmy are selling lemonade on the street outside of their parents´ houses. Timmy and Jimmy are both selling three to four cups of lemonade every day. Every few days they increase the amount of sugar in their lemonade and put up signs that they now are selling a new type of lemonade. This usually brings in lots of new people, but some are starting to get confused as both Timmy and Jimmy are selling so many different brands of lemonade. Now Lisa moves into the block. She spends some time in her garage trying different lemonade flavors until she finds one she really likes herself. Then she goes out on the street to sell the lemonade. People really like Lisa's lemonade. Its taste is distinctly different from Timmy's and Jimmy's. People start telling their friends about Lisa's lemonade! Soon people from the other block are starting to take the two minute bicycle ride just to get Lisa's lemonade! When Lisa after a few weeks introduces a slightly refined version of her new lemonade she sells as much lemonade in an afternoon as Timmy and Jimmy together sell in a month! After a while Timmy and Jimmy get angry. One night Timmy sneaks over and steals some of Lisa's lemonade. He moves his stand right next to Lisa's and even put up a sign saying "Lisa's lemonade" on his stand. The next day he shows up wearing Lisa's clothes. Some of the customers get confused and accidentally but Timmy's lemonade instead of Lisa's. Lisa goes home and cries to mommy. The parents get together and decide to ban Timmy from selling lemonade out on the street. How's that for context?

superchink 15y ago
Fantastic. Thank you for that unexpectedly wonderful metaphor. I especially like the part about Sam—er, Timmy getting told on by Lisa. She's so crafty. :)
cooldeal 15y ago
So Samsung steals iPhone and iPad stock from the factories (since they make some of the parts) and slaps a Samsung sticker on them and sells them. I get it now.