Could Apple really sell 45 Million iPhones in a year?


Sources who are allegedly aware of Apple’s company plans are telling Business Week that Apple expects to sell between 40 and 45 million iPhone 3G units over the course of the next year.

Something about that number just seems absurd to me, but with factories pumping out 800,000 iPhone units a week, I suppose its possible. If they stick with that as a constant rate of production they would ship 39 million units over a 12 month period.

Most analysts have the numbers at a much smaller 26 million units. Frankly, either of these numbers would be mind boggling. The main thing Apple is going to have to focus on here, however, is getting the iPhone 3G running smoothly and with good 3G reception. 40 Million units are fine – as long you have mostly happy customers. I’m sure the real geniuses at Apple (the people who build this stuff) are hard at work on a true fix for the 3G connectivity issue – I just hope they find it quickly.


Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

2 Comments

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  1. I think this is an example of “some guy” who thinks he knows telling BusinessWeek something that in actuality is completely bogus. If I was to guess I would say something around 25 million, but that isn’t that hard to do since we know about how many they’ve sold in the past year. I would love to see Apple sell 45 million iPhones but I just don’t see it happening in the next 12 months.