Has Apple Sold 10 Million iPhones?
News Commentary. Apple's big sales goal could come three months early. |
You wouldn't think so from Apple's free falling share price.
Second half 2008 should be Apple's golden time. After all, iPhone 3G is a huge hit. Instead, the stock keeps going down, today reaching a new 52-week low of $87.54 before rallying to close at $98.14. On Friday, shares closed at $97.07. A month ago, the shares traded for $160.18.
A blog post on Bullish Cross may have contributed to Apple's late-day rally. If so, tomorrow could even be sunnier. Maybe those dark storm clouds hanging over Apple shares will yet lift.
Andy M. Zaky and Turley Miller explained how an Aug. 1 post to Mac Obsever's Apple Finance Board led to user-contributed tracking of iPhone 3G sales. Forum contributor Tommo_UK asked other iPhone 3G users to share the first 5 characters of their serial numbers, 13 digits of the 15-digit IMEI number and date of order (and/or purchase).
What followed demonstrates the collaborative power of the Web. It's the kind of thing that makes me wild about the Web. Andy and Turley explain:
An IMEI number or an International Mobile Equipment Identity number is a unique 15 digit code assigned to each individual iPhone found on the back of the box in which an iPhone is packaged. Within this 15 digit code are two 6-digit numerical sequences crucial to determining the number of iPhones being produced. One 6 digit number, known as the TAC, or Type Allocation Code, signifies a particular build or set of iPhones being manufactured. The second 6 digit number is unique to each individual iPhone produced in that particular series—so that 1 million iPhones can be registered to a specific TAC. In other words, one six digit code, known as the TAC, signifies a set of iPhones being produced whereas the other six digit code signifies each individual iPhone within the TAC set.
Members at the Apple Finance Board at Mac Observer have been collecting IMEI numbers from new 3G iPhones sold during the period, and have been maintaining a spreadsheet of iPhone IMEI data points along with the purchase date, model and production week.
The spreadsheet ends with 9,190,680, sold on Oct. 4. Conceptually, one could argue that Apple had already sold more than 9 million iPhone 3Gs just two days ago.
There are some big ifs regarding the data:
- Apple's iPhone manufacturer could be skipping IMEI numbers or not using them sequentially.
- A high IMEI number doesn't mean that all phones have been sold; many iPhone 3Gs could be sitting in warehouses, still shipping to distributors or waiting in stores shelves.
- There's a 6-day gap in the spreadsheet; Oct. 4 is after Apple's quarter closed, but last dated entry before that is Sept. 24 and number 7,844,000.
The blog authors concede the second "if" I raise, removing 1.5 million iPhone 3Gs and reaching a total of 7.6 million units. By adding the 2.4 million iPhone 2Gs sold, that works out to 10 million units to date. Apple's goal was 10 million by end of year.
Fine, but I'm more concerned about third calendar quarter, which is where the numbers will be compared to others. Applying the 1.5 million filter puts the number sold at 6.3 million units, or 1.3 million greater than the most ambitious financial analyst estimate. Should Apple sell 6.3 million units, or more, iPhone would almost certainly capture the No. 2 spot for third-quarter worldwide smart phone shipments, measured by device and operating system. I used Gartner numbers in my estimates, which would in devices be ranked: Nokia, Apple, Research in Motion and HTC. By OS: Symbian, iPhone, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile.
Apple could use a little good news right now, and 10 million units sold to date could certainly lift the stock. But Apple's fiscal 2008 fourth quarter earnings announcement isn't for 15 days. I don't expect the company to say anything about iPhone 3G sales until then.
By the way, point of disclosure: I don't own any Apple shares, nor do I invest in any other companies. There would be conflict of interest. I've had a recent series of posts about Apple's share price simply because the stock so suddenly and dramatically fell.
[Please send your tips or rumors to watchtips at live.com.]
Comments (2)
Actually, iPhones going to distributors count as sold. The caveat that concerns me is the number skipping. Otherwise, 1.5M in transit or inventory seems high, by a factor of 3 to 6.
Posted by KenC | October 7, 2008 3:14 PM
Hey Joe you living on Mars these days? If not you might have notice the world financial system in free fall. Name a tech stock that went up the past 6 days. Seen RRIM (blackberry) lost halve it value.
Posted by Albert verbrugh | October 8, 2008 5:07 PM