It’s the long-term iPhone sales figures that matter

Posted by Dennis Sellers Jul 30, 2007 at 1:42am

After giving it some thought, I have a couple of final comments on Apple’s most recent financial announcements, mainly some thoughts on iPhone sales.

First, consider this statement by the Blackfriars: “We had predicted that Apple sold 500,000 iPhones the first weekend, yet Apple actually reported selling 270,000 in the first 30 hours, which were the only hours that counted for its fiscal third quarter,”

Of course, “the first weekend” includes Friday evening and all of Saturday and Sunday, but the third quarter didn’t include Sunday. I don’t know how many they sold on the Friday evening, but it’s entirely possible (thought perhaps not likely) that it was 40,000 on Friday, 230,000 on Saturday and 230,000 on Sunday, which would make both 270,000 in the third quarter and 500,000 in the first weekend correct.

Blackfriar Bruce Hoult adds that, “if you assume that Friday evening was a bit closer in numbers to Saturday, and that Sunday was the same as Saturday then you’re still looking at something like, say, 100k, 170k, 170k for 440,000 over the weekend.”

As Bruce notes, some pundits probably weren’t too far off of that 500k number for the weekend, and certainly by the following Monday sales topped that number. However, I think WAY too much emphasis is placed on the rate of sales out of the starting gate. It’s almost like the movie industry celebrating over high box office numbers on opening weekend, only to see the movie fade into obscurity two weeks later.

I’m much more interested in the iPhone’s success over the next year. the commentator provides a lot of strength to Apple’s confidence to sell a million iPhones by the end of this fourth financial quarter.

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