iPhone sales outpacing original ipod but still look short

by Ted Wallingford Sep 10th 2007

One needs only to turn to YouTube and Wikipedia to discover the realities behind the hype of the iPhone, which, deserved or not, is still hype. Today, eWeek reported that Apple's much-vaunted cellular phone has passed one million retail units sold. eWeek points out (in what is certainly a tip of the hat to Apple's press release wording) that this milestone was reached ahead of schedule. Sounds great, especially considering the thing's only been available for a few months.

But when the onion is peeled back (and the way-back machine set for January of this year), the hype seems a little less exciting. When Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in January, he said Apple's goal was to ship 10 million iPhones by the end of ~~the year~~ 2008. In order to achieve this feat now, he needs retail to sell 9 million units in 4 16 months. Granted, the holiday season is coming up, and the price of the device just dropped substantially, but with only a single carrier as a service partner, the 10 million mark seems like a very tall order indeed.

Still, the iPhone has been a relative success, especially when you consider it took the first two iPod generations nearly two years just to cross the million unit market, something iPhone has done in just a little under three months. We know the iPod was in a brand new market, and in all honesty was probably more revolutionary than the iPhone. At the time of its introduction, digital music storage was a foreign concept to most consumers, whereas cell phones are already carried by a majority of the adult population in North America.

So what do you think? Now that we've seen some intermediate sales numbers, is Apple going to hit the 10 million mark by year's end?

Tags: apple, iphone

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

nbogol said 8:15PM on 9-10-2007

I think he said 10 million units by end of 2008 not 2007. The premise of the article is at fault.

Joey S. said 8:43PM on 9-10-2007

I'm going to have to agree with nbogol on this one. I thought that Apple expects to sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. Expecting to sell 10 million iPhones by the beginning of the 2008 would be, well, impossible. Even for my favorite company :)

Ted Wallingford said 8:46PM on 9-10-2007

Ah yes, you're right. I just re-watched that portion of the keynote. And it is 2008. Still will be interesting to see. By that logic, they should be on pace to hit that goal and maybe a little extra.

raycosm said 10:37PM on 9-10-2007

@comment above: what?

My guess
Worldwide = probably
US = definite no, especially with the iPod Touch (I know I'm not getting an iPhone)

Se7en said 10:45PM on 9-10-2007

So....this is an odd article. What is the point?

Jim said 2:58AM on 9-11-2007

It sure is an odd article and Ted seems to have entirely missed the point that at some stage later this year Apple will introduce the iPhone to a market every bit as large as the US when it hits Europe and then some time next year another huge market in Asia. 10 million units? Entirely possible. Apple is not usually given to wild flights of fancy and I'm very sure that considerable thought went in to the 10m prediction before it was Steve-noted.

Jitaroo said 3:39AM on 9-11-2007

hasnt anyone noticed the picture??? Which mac has a pentium 4 processor?

Michael said 4:49AM on 9-11-2007

Ted, please do your homework next time you decide to write an article. It just boggles my mind when someone writing for a blog owned by AOL can be so careless! The whole point of this article was based on false information (by the end of 2008 not 2007) and not being able to realize that the iphones market is not limited to the United States(Europe and Asia???). Download Squad should take down this article asap. Because with the assumptions this artile was based being false, what is the point??

Lou Bauler said 5:19AM on 9-11-2007

What kind of douche bag writes an article in a “respected” website without doing their homework or having common sense? Ted, you should be fired. In case that you are doing this for free scumbag, than you should be penalized.

Alex Linhares said 6:10AM on 9-11-2007

Hello Americans,

I'm sad to be the one to tell you that there's this thing called "the world". It is--please restrain your manners now--a little bit larger than the US (In fact, even "America" stands for something much larger than the US.) Sorry about that, folks.

Matt said 8:42AM on 9-11-2007

I think the way in which phones are brought should also be taken into account.
Whilst the comparison to ipods gives a general feel people do not buy phones like ipods.
Many people may be unwilling to break or get a second contract.
Thats not to say they wont buy one when it runs out but i think its a bit unfair to say that they are not doing well when you consider this information.

brandon said 11:19AM on 9-11-2007

If Apple or AT&T would pay for me to cancel Verizon, I would buy two today.

Ted Wallingford said 1:41PM on 9-11-2007

Hey guys, thanks for all the constructive criticism and discussion. The Intel Pentium somebody mentioned in the background of the picture is from a Devcon where Jobs was doing a demo of an early Mac OS X for Intel build.

Brian said 1:58PM on 9-11-2007

So then, the point of this article is... ???

Jeff Schiller said 3:20PM on 9-11-2007

So the math in the article is also completely false (4 months to sell 9 million units). It's actually 16 months - which is plenty of time...

Mike said 2:04AM on 9-12-2007

Ted: if you now recognise your error, why isn't the article fixed? And, I agree with the others, with the correction of your error, what is the point?

Lou Bauler said 6:58AM on 9-12-2007

Ted,

As a shareholder of Apple Inc. (AAPL) I am worried about the false and unjustifiable negative publicity that my company is receiving from your article. Admitting that you were wrong does not solve the fact that this article is still generating negative publicity. If you know that your article does not make any sense, you should remove it from the blog.

andrea said 3:09PM on 9-12-2007

apple will sell 10m by end of 2008. there isn't just one holiday season, there are 2 of them (2007 and 2008) and some product iterations to make it even more appealing (more storage, new UI, 3G access, etc.)
And do not forget that more people will jump in as their contracts expires with old carriers. so many factors play

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