Comments on: Apple is likely to hit its goal of 1% market share in 2008

By: Partners in Grime

Partners in Grime — Sat, 31 May 2008 00:56:57 +0000

Apple will hit 10 million iPhones sold no problem.

By: Partners in Grime

Partners in Grime — Fri, 30 May 2008 03:00:31 +0000

http://youtube.com/watch?v=D-X_nLCz6Hc&feature=related

Check out Steve’s exact words at the iPhone introduction. His expression comes at about the 3:15 mark.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:03:09 +0000

“I think the â€œ10,000,000 in 2008â€³ comment is purposely too vague to support any argument to the contrary. ”

No. Steve Jobs said that Apple would sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008. There was no misunderstanding of what he said, he was clear.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:54:01 +0000

It’s only “settled down” because everyone is clearly waiting for the 3G version.
http://www.krontzilla.com

By: Barry

Barry — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:56:02 +0000

The problem in selling the iphone has got nothing to do with the quality and the features of the iphone – it’s with the networks providing the iphone, the rates being charged and the price of the phone.

I am impatiently waiting for O2 Ireland to release the 3G iphone before I make a purchase. The price of the phone doesn’t deter me at all, but the difference between O2′s price plans in Ireland and in the UK is incredible.

In Ireland O2 don’t offer visual voicemail at all (you pay for normal access to voicemail on the iphone – the only phone that a charge for voicemail applies). They have set a cap of 1GB of data per month (10c per Mb over that) and have the gall to charge a whopping â‚¬100 per month ($150) to get 700 minutes of talk time and 250 texts (in the UK you get the a better deal for $50 per month.

outrageous.

I am currently not with O2 and will probably switch over to them to get the 3G iphone – but with great reluctance at the rates charged. Many of my friends who would LOVE to get the iphone share by sense of being screwed to get it. Irish sales certainly wont help Apple to reach 10 million sales in 2008!

By: Alan

Alan — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:09:33 +0000

It sounds like you’re counting phones sold in 2007 as part of the 10 million, but then also counting all of 2008 based on the “9 months to go”. If they want to hit 1% of the market it has to be a year long period – either 6/29/07 to 6/28/08 or 1/1/08 to 12/31/08.

Also the market has moved – there were 1.15 billion cell phones sold in 2007, so 1% is actually 11.5 million. We can read the tea leaves of Steve’s comments all we want, but several times it was pointed out that Apple’s current goal is to sell 10 million iPhones in calendar 2008.

Lastly I think Macworld was optimistic about the rise q/q sales for this quarter because currently a large part of the channel is empty – they have not sold iPhones online or at Apple stores for weeks. My guesstimate is that so far they are well below last quarters performance.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:46:44 +0000

are you an idiot? of course 1% market share means 1% of phones sold in 2008, not cumulatively to date.
There are over 1B phones sold every year which is how you get to the 10M unit number (Apple’s goal). If it were cumulative phones out there in use, then 10M is much much less than 1% marketshare, perhaps closer to 0.3% market share. However you slice it, 1% market share means 10M phones in 2008. Anything short of 10M units in 2008 means way less than 1% market share. And 10M units equaling 1% market share is actually not accurate. There should be closer to 1.1B phones sold globally in 2008, which means Apple would need to 11M phones *in* 2008.

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:43:34 +0000

I think the “10,000,000 in 2008″ comment is purposely too vague to support any argument to the contrary. While purposely vague enough to support any boasting Apple chooses to do – as they can define “In 2008″ in a myriad of ways. When I originally heard that comment made, I thought Apple / Steve were gunning for 10,000,000 iPhones in the first year – meaning June 2007 – June 2008. Not Calendar Year 2008, not Fiscal Year 2008, but the first year of retail sales ending in June 2008

By: Jeff

Jeff — Thu, 29 May 2008 17:15:48 +0000

I did some searching and at the Keynote in January 2007, Jobs said they would sell 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 29 May 2008 16:59:34 +0000

@Jim

In the 2nd Quarter Conference call they kept saying they were “confident in their goal of 10 million for 2008″ – they never said IN 2008.

No matter how it ends up – if there is a 10 million total, they’re going to claim it as meeting their goal.

By: mark

mark — Thu, 29 May 2008 16:16:01 +0000

Cook and Oppenheimer have clarified on multiple occasions (including Apple’s 2Q conference call) that the 10M target is for calendar year 2008 sales. So it doesn’t really matter how fuzzy Steve Jobs made it back at the launch. The “first full year” is now understood to be first full calendar year, 2008.

The upswing in the MW article is assuming that the iPhone is released within days of June 9th. Apple sold 270K in one country over 2.5 days at a high price. In my projections, assuming 2.5 to 3 weeks, and 67+ countries, it’s not unreasonable to assume another 2M in sales of the new iPhone in this quarter. (And you need to add the 2M to a very conservative assumption that Apple sold only 800K of the older iPhone over the first 70 days of the quarter.)

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 29 May 2008 16:07:02 +0000

The question is, if he said 10 million in 2008, do you or do you not count the phones sold in 2007? That is where the confusion lies. Did he predict 10 million totalling 2007 and 2008 sales, or was he referring to 2008 sales only, throwing out the 2007 sales? Clear answer, please!