Analyst: Apple gave up iPhone sales to push iPod touch as ‘mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform’
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Jan 29, 2008 at 12:35pm
Apple gave up as many as 1.5 million iPhone sales during the holiday quarter to establish the future of the iPod as a mobile device, Needham & Company analyst Charles Wolf says in a note to clients. He bases his conclusion on Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook that Apple is promoting the iPod touch as a “mainstream WiFI mobile platform.”
“If the company is successful in this endeavor, it would provide a compelling upgrade path for the estimated 85 million people who already own iPods,” Wolf says. “And it could attract new users to both the iPhone and the iPod platform as well. The company appears willing to risk the cannibalization of a significant number of iPhones to accomplish this.”
Apple’s decision to trade short-term losses for long-term growth of the iPod touch as a general device cost the company long-term profits since it meant losing as much as US$250 million in subscriber revenue shared from AT&T over two years, the analyst told clients. He added that, in his opinion, without the iPod touch, Apple may have sold as many as four million iPhones in the last fiscal quarter.
The “Macsimum MWSF 2007 Coupon Book” is available for download. You can find it here and print it as a PDF. It has discounts, special offers and promotions.
Article Information
Comment on this Article Print this Article Email this Article Digg This
Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
