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The unit used in the air cargo industry is the RTK -- revenue tonne-kilometer. On PVG-ANC, the route by which iPhones enter the US, a single 77-tonne load of i

The unit used in the air cargo industry is the RTK -- revenue tonne-kilometer. On PVG-ANC, the route by which iPhones enter the US, a single 77-tonne load of iPhones (what the article estimated) is around 530,000 RTK. Boeing estimates that in 2013, worldwide air cargo was 208 billion RTK. In other words, that plane-load of iPhones is around 25 ten-thousandths of a percent of global air cargo capacity. So yes, iPhones are absolutely a drop in the bucket. Just saturating the existing scheduled cargo capacity into the US for a few days would probably exceed Apple's manufacturing capabilities.

thedogeye 12y ago
I'd love to chat about how you calculated their share for my upcoming post on Apples share of transpacific freight. Email me if you'd be down? Ryan@flexport.com
- ubernostrum 12y ago
  PVG-ANC = 6,933 km great circle distance. 77 tonnes of cargo on that route is 6,933 * 77 = 533,841 RTK. Boeing reports[1] 208 billion RTK worldwide in 2013. 533,841 / 208,000,000,000 = 2.566543269230769e-06. So that's the percentage of worldwide air cargo a 77-tonne load on a PVG-ANC cargo flight would represent. [1] http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/cargo/wacf.pdf http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/cargo/wacf.pdf
  - thedogeye 12y ago
    I think the hang up here is on Apples scale. That single shipment of 300k phones weighs just 77 tons. But Apple sold 74.4M phones last quarter of which about 30% went to North America.
    - ubernostrum 12y ago
      So, go with 77 tonnes = one 747 = 300k iPhones. 30% of 74.4m iPhones would be 22,320,000 iPhones. Divide by 300k (which is a planeload) and you get roughly 74 planeloads of iPhones per quarter. Currently there are about half a dozen 747 freighters each day flying PVG-ANC. So at most it's about 12 days' capacity of that one route each quarter, meaning it tops out at 10% of the overall capacity on the route each quarter. And it still is a drop in the bucket compared to worldwide air cargo. Remember one planeload of iPhones is 533,841 RTK. We're talking now about 74 per quarter, which is 296 planeloads/year. 296 * 533,841 = 158,016,936 RTK represented in iPhones coming to the United States in a year. And global air cargo is 208,000,000,000 RTK/year. Divide 158,016,936 by that, and you get a figure of: 0.0007596968076923077. So if we add up a reasonable estimate of all the iPhones that come to the US in a year, and a reasonable estimate of how many 747s it takes to haul them from China, we get a figure that is... just over seven hundredths of a percent of a year's worth of global air cargo. In other words, all the iPhones that come into the United States in a year, combined, are still basically a rounding error of global air cargo.
      - thedogeye 12y ago
        What's with the PVG-ANC route? Is Apple doing U.S. fulfillment out of Alaska? Those phones still need to reach the mainland, so I think you need to double the ton-kilometer number to get them down here.
        ubernostrum 12y ago
        Shanghai is the point of departure from China, and Anchorage is the point of entry in the US (both are significant cargo hubs). So that's the route you can rely on the shipments taking; from Anchorage they could go anywhere in the US, and so it's not really possible to estimate how much further they travel on average. Even if we assume worst case for 100% of iPhones -- that is, that every iPhone bound for the United States ends up in the southeastern corner of the country in order to maximize the distance flown (since that's the furthest point from ANC) -- the incoming leg from Shanghai is still longer than the onward journey from Anchorage. Which means that the estimate for PVG-ANC represents the majority of the RTK of iPhones bound for the US, which means the hard ceiling on the total RTK even if we assume every single iPhone is delivered to someone in Miami to max out the distance, is around 300m RTK, which is still a rounding error of the global air-cargo total of 208 billion. No matter how much you try to push it to be a bigger number, "the scale of Apple" is just not significant in terms of percentage of global air cargo.
thedogeye 12y ago
Are you sure there are 100 freighters operating on the PVC-ANC route daily? 60% of air cargo is flown in the belly of passenger planes. There are not a huge number of dedicated freighters out there.
- ubernostrum 12y ago
  A 77-tonne load would represent about 6% of the capacity of the scheduled freight-only flights that ran PVG-ANC today (Wednesday). Depending on final aircraft arrangements, it would represent at most 4.8% of tomorrow's (Thursday's) scheduled freight-only flight capacity.
  - thedogeye 12y ago
    Very cool. Where do you get your data? Apple is flying 1.4 full freighters per day just for the iPhone (well, maybe it's like 1/3 of 4 freighters). So they are a significant percentage of transpacific cargo.
    - ubernostrum 12y ago
      Plenty of flight-tracking sites let you look up scheduled flights on any route and see how many flights and what type of aircraft.

thedogeye 12y ago

I'd love to chat about how you calculated their share for my upcoming post on Apples share of transpacific freight. Email me if you'd be down? Ryan@flexport.com

ubernostrum 12y ago
PVG-ANC = 6,933 km great circle distance. 77 tonnes of cargo on that route is 6,933 * 77 = 533,841 RTK. Boeing reports[1] 208 billion RTK worldwide in 2013. 533,841 / 208,000,000,000 = 2.566543269230769e-06. So that's the percentage of worldwide air cargo a 77-tonne load on a PVG-ANC cargo flight would represent. [1] http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/cargo/wacf.pdf http://www.boeing.com/assets/pdf/commercial/cargo/wacf.pdf
- thedogeye 12y ago
  I think the hang up here is on Apples scale. That single shipment of 300k phones weighs just 77 tons. But Apple sold 74.4M phones last quarter of which about 30% went to North America.
  - ubernostrum 12y ago
    So, go with 77 tonnes = one 747 = 300k iPhones. 30% of 74.4m iPhones would be 22,320,000 iPhones. Divide by 300k (which is a planeload) and you get roughly 74 planeloads of iPhones per quarter. Currently there are about half a dozen 747 freighters each day flying PVG-ANC. So at most it's about 12 days' capacity of that one route each quarter, meaning it tops out at 10% of the overall capacity on the route each quarter. And it still is a drop in the bucket compared to worldwide air cargo. Remember one planeload of iPhones is 533,841 RTK. We're talking now about 74 per quarter, which is 296 planeloads/year. 296 * 533,841 = 158,016,936 RTK represented in iPhones coming to the United States in a year. And global air cargo is 208,000,000,000 RTK/year. Divide 158,016,936 by that, and you get a figure of: 0.0007596968076923077. So if we add up a reasonable estimate of all the iPhones that come to the US in a year, and a reasonable estimate of how many 747s it takes to haul them from China, we get a figure that is... just over seven hundredths of a percent of a year's worth of global air cargo. In other words, all the iPhones that come into the United States in a year, combined, are still basically a rounding error of global air cargo.
    - thedogeye 12y ago
      What's with the PVG-ANC route? Is Apple doing U.S. fulfillment out of Alaska? Those phones still need to reach the mainland, so I think you need to double the ton-kilometer number to get them down here.
      - ubernostrum 12y ago
        Shanghai is the point of departure from China, and Anchorage is the point of entry in the US (both are significant cargo hubs). So that's the route you can rely on the shipments taking; from Anchorage they could go anywhere in the US, and so it's not really possible to estimate how much further they travel on average. Even if we assume worst case for 100% of iPhones -- that is, that every iPhone bound for the United States ends up in the southeastern corner of the country in order to maximize the distance flown (since that's the furthest point from ANC) -- the incoming leg from Shanghai is still longer than the onward journey from Anchorage. Which means that the estimate for PVG-ANC represents the majority of the RTK of iPhones bound for the US, which means the hard ceiling on the total RTK even if we assume every single iPhone is delivered to someone in Miami to max out the distance, is around 300m RTK, which is still a rounding error of the global air-cargo total of 208 billion. No matter how much you try to push it to be a bigger number, "the scale of Apple" is just not significant in terms of percentage of global air cargo.

thedogeye 12y ago

Are you sure there are 100 freighters operating on the PVC-ANC route daily? 60% of air cargo is flown in the belly of passenger planes. There are not a huge number of dedicated freighters out there.

ubernostrum 12y ago
A 77-tonne load would represent about 6% of the capacity of the scheduled freight-only flights that ran PVG-ANC today (Wednesday). Depending on final aircraft arrangements, it would represent at most 4.8% of tomorrow's (Thursday's) scheduled freight-only flight capacity.
- thedogeye 12y ago
  Very cool. Where do you get your data? Apple is flying 1.4 full freighters per day just for the iPhone (well, maybe it's like 1/3 of 4 freighters). So they are a significant percentage of transpacific cargo.
  - ubernostrum 12y ago
    Plenty of flight-tracking sites let you look up scheduled flights on any route and see how many flights and what type of aircraft.