Everybody has been playing the guessing game on how many iPhone 3Gs Apple has sold. The numbers have been pitted at 11 million this year and 25 million in 2009 on the low end and 13 million this year and 45 million in 2009 on the optimistic side. Well according to people familiar with Apple’s production plans, it looks like Apple is preparing for the high end of the spectrum, upping their yearly production to around 40 million.
As it stands, Apple is pumping out 150,000 iPhones a day which roughly equates to 39 million a year (5 days a week, 52 weeks a year). Apple should have no problem selling these iPhones because of the international rollout and the Best Buy initiative, greater availability leads to more sales.
What does need to be fixed is the activation process, analysts deem the current process as the bottleneck that limits efficiency. Analysts are also pointing at a cheaper iPhone model to be announced during Macworld. That’ll certainly help Apple reach its ambitious goals.
We at TiPb think it’s entirely feasible to reach 40 million by 2009. Even after the initial hype subsides, there are still plenty of new markets to reach. If the iPhone begins to come in colors, new models, and more polished apps the iPhone 3G will continue to stay fresh for a long while. Now if Apple ever decided to sell the iPhone online again, well then, 40 million will be easy as pie. What do you think?
ReadVia
Steve Jobs announced Apple would sell 10 million iPhones in 2008. Up until June, given waning sales, 3G expectations, and large-scale unavailability from Apple and carriers alike, it didn’t look possible.
Enter $199. Jobs said it. I said it. Casey said it. Pretty much everyone and their blog said it. Now the analysts are saying it to:
Sales BOOM!
In total [RBC's Mike Abramsky] expects Apple to sell 14 million iPhones by the end of the year [...] For 2009 though Abramsky is only predicting sales of 24 million, a drastic difference from Piper Jaffray estimates of 45 million. Observes note however that Piper is factoring in unannounced sibling iPhones, which could make the device more affordable for the average person.
They’re talking iPod scale numbers now, folks.
What do you think? Can Apple do with the iPhone what they did with the iPod?
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Monday was analyst prediction day, as RBC Capital analyst Mike Abramsky and Banc of American analyst Scott Craig separately provided the following guestimates on Apple’s next gen iPhone:
Abramsky predicts him some amped up CPU, more memory, and the faster 3G speeds that allow for higher def (HD?) video, voice capture, streaming HD video, real-time GPS, and other Trekkie goodness. All this would, coupled with a mid-2008 release, would let Apple blow past 10 million, and hit a potential 11 million unites sold by year end.
For his part, Craig skipped features and stuck to the money: “We believe that demand in the U.S. may have been impacted by the anticipation of a new 3G phone…” (Perhaps because of continued analyst bombardment of same?) Craig also sees a 3G handset in 2008 as necessary to complete the 10 million handset march.
Check out AppleInsider for more.
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