Update: It has now been confirmed at 700 thousand sales over the first weekend.
This past weekend, Apple sold 500 thousand iPhones, or 5% of 1-year sales goal. Assuming peak sales in the eight-week Christmas shopping season, that will match or beat this week, Apple’s going to hit their target early. Very early.
In case you didn’t know, Verizon was offered the iPhone first, but declined. Verizon is so stupid to turn down Apple. That’s 10 million new customers AT&T is going to get (or keep). AT&T must be walking in the clouds right now.
Apple’s competitors are going to have a hard time competing because the primary barrier to entry will still exist: the carrier. Apple was able to tell AT&T “No, we won’t have your crappy browser and ring tone selling software on our phone, and we are going to reduce text messages by pushing email functionality,” and AT&T simply had to accept it. The results speak for themselves: absolutely no AT&T software on the iPhone. But competitors such as Nokia, LG, or other hand held makers are screwed.
Competitors have to ask carriers such as Verizon to give them the same development freedom as Apple in order to compete, but Verizon rejected Apple for exactly that reason in the first place. No other phone in history will sell 500,000 in its first weekend, except perhaps future versions of the iPhone. Verizon had its chance, and it blew it. Verizon will make concessions simply because it doesn’t want to bleed all of its customers to AT&T, but it will be a slow process. They aren’t going to back peddle 180 degrees and suddenly destroy their cash cows such as text and picture messages (iPhones use free email).
It’s going to take months before Verizon realizes what hit them, or even that they got hit at all.
I went to the Apple store this weekend to try out the phone, and I was greeted by a line. A line to get into the store to look around. While it was a brisk wait, the line never failed to fall below 10 people while I was there. Inside, the demo iPhones were plentiful.
My conclusion: Apple has another home run.
After all the hype, the iPhone really lives up to most it. Apple did an incredibly job highlighting its strengths without hiding its weaknesses, thus keeping expectations in check. Its interface is slick, it’s sexy, and its touch response was incredibly precise. After playing with it for a few minutes, the previously slick looking iPods looked dated. This thing is going to hit the MP3 player market like a firebomb on grass huts!
Once the first generation buyers show their friends what they have, it’s only going to generate more interest. I firmly believe it after using the phone myself.
The product sells itself.