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iTunes sales charts updated:
http://www.systemshootouts.org/itunes_sales.html
Note how all-over-the-map the "Average sold per day" chart appears; this may be because unlike iPod or Mac sales, which are released at regular quarterly intervals, the iTunes figures are released whenever Apple happens to feel like it.
Even then, they often simply say "OVER XX number have been sold to date" which gives room for plenty of leeway. For instance, when they announced "MORE THAN 3 billion" this morning, that could mean significantly more, perhaps 3.2-3.3 billion or so, which would skew the "avg. per day" graph significantly once they announce the 4 billion figure.
Even so, it looks like they're right around 5 million per day overall, or around 1.8 billion per year.
roni--very nice! I didn't even send a press release to TMO or anything this time, they just linked it on their own :)
Another sign of the times: Dvorak just admitted that he's started using a Mac and recommending it to family & friends.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2162397,00.asp
KCMW--EXCELLENT catch! And, while this may be seen as fanboy thinking, I really don't see it as "sandbagging", or at least it seems reasonable under the circumstances, since none of the iPhones ordered online would actually be shipped until well into the 3rd quarter anyway. Combine this with the "broken out over 24 months" mantra for the actual revenue, and the fact that you're talking about less than 2 days in the prior quarter and it seems reasonable (as a one-time thing) to push the online sales ahead.
Or perhaps I'm just rationalizing? lol...
Yofal--heh, will do, although the "market share" graph would be a bit difficult to do just yet.
I believe the estimate for ALL cellphones is around a billion per year (250 million/quarter), but that's a pretty rough number, and the "smartphone" market is really what I should be comparing...
A quick Google search brings this up (it's from 2 years ago, however):
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS5566717572.html
"Smartphones are enjoying brisker than expected growth, according to a new report from Gartner. The firm's recently released "mobile terminals" market study projects that shipments of mobile phones in general will surpass 1 billion units in 2009, and that "smartphones" will reach the 200 million mark one year earlier, in 2008."
Hmmm...assuming 200 million smartphones next year, figure 160 million this year, or about 40 million last quarter?
That would mean, in theory, that the iPhone *already* had a 0.7% market share in its' first 2 days!!
If they sold a total of 1 million by the end of this quarter (an additional 730,000), that'd give them a 1.8% share.
FYI: Updated historical Apple sales charts/graphs for both Mac and iPod sales:
http://www.systemshootouts.org/mac_sales.html
http://www.systemshootouts.org/ipod_sales.html
Note of interest: Worldwide market share for the Mac hit 3.0% this quarter, the highest it's been since September 2000.
Interesting--for all the oddball data points revealed during the conference call, no one appears to have asked anything about the status of the iTunes Plus program--is it still EMI only, how are sales of the DRM-free songs going, etc...
1.764 M Macs sold = 3.0% global market share for the quarter, assuming that IDC's estimate of 58.824 M total PCs is accurate.
spitsong--I believe they announced that they're planning on breaking all iPhone revenue down into 24 monthly portions to correspond with the 2-year service contracts
I know others have mentioned this already, but just to reiterate...
The 146,000 number only includes, it would seem, iPhones actually activated between 6pm Friday 6/29 and 12:00 midnight Saturday 6/30.
I can't imagine too many people were up at 4am activating their iPhones, so lop out perhaps 6 hours of that period (then again, anyone geeked enough to stand in line for hours to get one may very well be up all night setting theirs up). So, you're really talking about perhaps 24 hours total.
That's an iPhone ACTIVATED (not sold) every 1.7 seconds or so. Pretty friggin' impressive to me...
Tex--what's he basing the 1.2 million number on??
He doesn't list any source--no NDP, no IDC, no Gartner, not even Microsofts' own press release or quarterly earnings statement.
He just says, flat-out "Over 1.2 million units of the jukebox have sold between the device's November 14th, 2006 launch and the end of the recent quarter on June 30th."
I'm not saying he's wrong, I'm just questioning his source (which doesn't exist) or calculations (which he doesn't present) to get this number.
spitsong--oh, I could certainly see it selling well, I'm just saying that since the iPhone came out, the only griping of this nature that I've been reading about has been "I want a combo iPod/internet device, but without the phone".
Now, I happened to read recently that AT&T is considering offering a "no EDGE" package, which is basically the iPhone at $40 per month; you'd still be able to use WiFi networks for internet access, just not AT&T's EDGE network (and the visual voicemail wouldn't work either). Something like that would make the iPhone much more appealing to me--I'm already paying $35/month for my basic T-Mobile Sony-Ericson phone, so it's tempting.
Tomm--a lot of people have been clamoring for an "iPhone minus the phone" version (iPod + web but no phone), but I don't know of anyone who's been begging for an "iPhone minus the web" version.
Still, who knows...
KCMW--Here's the key sentence in that mess:
"Zune, which was launched in November 2006, consumer hardware and software, and TV platforms revenue increased $113 million or 56%"
OK, I'm not sure what exactly "consumer hardware and software" is, and I presume that "TV platforms" refers to...WebTV? Media Center machines??
In any event, those things *plus* Zune sales were 56% higher than (previous quarter? previous years' quarter? not sure), and that 56% equalled $113 million.
113 = 0.56 x ??
?? = $202 million
So, total revenue for that division this quarter was 202 + 113 = $315 million.
Again, assuming $250 per Zune, that would add up to 1.25 million Zunes...except that the $315 million also includes "consumer hardware and software" and "TV platforms", whatever those are.
Sure sounds like they're burying the figure to me...
KCMW--well, let's see...
If total Xbox plus Zune revenue for the quarter is $1.16 billion...
...and Xbox sales were about 1 million (according to MSFT's own lowered expectations):
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/8709A21F-1899-4AA2-8283-CAF3F4B353FF.html
...and assuming an avg. $350 sale price for the Xbox 360, plus perhaps another $100 in assorted games/peripherals, that would mean about $450 million in Xbox sales, leaving about $710 million in Zune sales.
Assuming $250 per Zune, that would mean 2.8 million Zunes sold.
Since, as you noted, MSFT isn't crowing about selling almost 3 times the number they expected, I must be missing something in my math here.
Well, if that 26% growth held true worldwide as well, that would give them a 2.8% global market share (based on the rest of the numbers given):
Apple's Q2 2006 U.S. sales: 761,000
Apple's Q2 2006 global sales: 1.327 million
Apple's Q2 2007 U.S. sales: 960,000
Apple's Q2 2007 global sales: 1.674 million (?) (assuming 26.1% growth)
Since IDC is estimating total global PC sales of 58.824 million, that would give Apple appx. 2.8% worldwide market share for the quarter, which would be the highest it's been in 7 years.
Tex--honestly, I can't really answer that...I'm not a Flash guru, I've only used it for stuff like intro splashscreens (which, as I said, I generally recommend against), photo slideshows, that sort of thing. I don't know too much about the advanced uses, although I did recently start experimenting with converting video clips to Flash video.
The reason I'm against the intro movies has nothing to do with Flash specifically, it's just that a) it's usually a waste of the site visitor's time, b) it hurts your search engine ranking (since there's nothing on the home page for Google et al to search for their databases), and c) if it includes automatically-playing audio, it could conceivably get you fired if you're surfing the web at work.
Pete--hmmm...I think we're running into confusion by semantics here--can you give me an example URL of a hover feature that wouldn't work on the iPhone?
KCMW--in the case of my business site, you may have a point; I have plenty of space down the left-hand side for the sub-menu items. I've been considering changing this.
In the case of the Shootouts site, it's definitely to avoid clutter--the comparison charts take up so much space that I need to free up as much room as possible for them, so I went with the drop-downs.
Yes, I do limit my drop-downs to one (or, at the very most, 2) levels.
Yes, there is the "iPhoney" application which lets you see roughly what your site looks like on the iPhone:
http://www.marketcircle.com/iphoney/
...however, using it, the drop-downs worked, so I just figured that the iPhoney app didn't emulate that particular aspect (there's some other iPhone behavior that it can't handle yet as well). According to bluzboy and 2bStealthy, they work fine, however, so there you go...
Tex--I agree that the ones which obscure the other menus are awful. I personally prefer not having to click in order to get the drop-down, as long as it's not covering up something eles important...guess it's just a matter of taste.
The other type I've seen is the "push down" where clicking the first major link "shoves" the rest of the list down the page to make room for the sub-links. Not a fan of that either.
The GOOD news (well, for me, anyway) is that I foresee making extra money by re-creating mobile versions of some of my clients' sites as soon as the iPhone becomes enough of a force to make it reasonable to suggest it.
Who knows? It may even be enough to convice my Flash-intro-using clients to let me get rid of the Flash splashscreens!
Bluzboy (and 2bStealthy)--thanks, glad to hear that they work! Sounds like that developer was wrong (or at least referring to other types of mouseover effects).
PS 2bStealthy--I dropped my paid iHub account, so I can't respond to private messages :)
Could an iPhone owner do me a favor?
Visit either my business site http://www.brainwrap.com or the Shootouts site http://www.systemshootouts.org using your iPhone, and let me know whether the drop-down sub-menus work or not (across the top for the Shootouts site, down the left-hand side for the Brainwrap site).
I've been informed that in addition to Flash not working on the iPhone (which I have no problem with), rollover Javascript menus don't work either. If that's true, then I (and a LOT of other web developers!) will have to consider developing iPhone-friendly versions of our sites regardless of the "real" Safari browser on the iPhone.
A developer posting over at TUAW points out:
http://www.tuaw.com/2007/07/18/the-strange-case-of-made-for-iphone-websites/2#c5994334
* The iPhone has a tiny screen compared to desktop computers.
* The iPhone displays about one fourth the number of pixels most desktop computers display.
* The iPhone has no Flash.
* The iPhone has no Java.
* The iPhone's browser doesn't support hover or mouseover effects (this one is *huge*!).
* The pointing device on the iPhone (your finger) is probably five times fatter than the pointing device on your desktop computer (a mouse cursor).
* You constantly have to zoom in and out while using an iPhone's browser.
Actually, if you check out other rants by that guy, you'll see that he basically hates everyone and everything.
Awesome--I was actually surprised that Ann Arbor didn't get a store earlier; UM has always been a major Apple/Mac hot spot (with EMU right next door as well).
Now they need to add one in Lansing to catch the Michigan State & state capital folks...
Hmmm...Apple store offline this morning...new iMacs? minor maintenance?
Remember our discussion about Apple possibly cutting the labels out of the loop entirely?
Apple to Start Record Label with Jay-Z and Beyonce?
http://www.macrumors.com/2007/07/15/apple-to-start-record-label-with-jay-z-and-beyonce/
TheStreet jackass posts a follow-up to his "iPhone costs $17,000" column:
http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/newsanalysis/opinion/10367643.html
His new premise is that because everyone is calling him an idiot, that proves that he's right.
Don't ask me why, but I decided to write him a politely-worded explanation of the flaws in his original article:
Dear Mr. Arends,
I can't speak for anyone else, but the only thing that bothered me about the *first* iPhone article was that you went out of your way to make it sound like the iPhone was the sole example of that sort of "foolish" investment decision.
You're absolutely correct that taking the $500 for an iPhone (plus the minimum $1,440 in monthly service fees over 2 years that AT&T is charging) and investing it in an mutual fund (or whatever) would likely gain you many thousands of dollars more 30 years down the road.
The only problem is that the exact same thing could be said about ANY purchase made by anyone at any time. Just change the numbers a bit from your original article.
Based on your own calculations, instead of filling your gas tank for $40, investing it for 35 years would net you about $300. Should we stop buying everything?
This has nothing to do with the iPhone in particular; it, at least, CAN be useful, since it does function as a cellphone, camera, web browser, email program, etc. Your argument would make much more sense regarding an XBox/PlayStation/etc, which don't generally serve a "productive" function.
It doesn't make sense to single out the iPhone even within the world of cellphones--shouldn't Treo or Blackberry owners be investing their money instead of making "foolish" purchases like this?
I applaud your call for people to show restraint when it comes to making expensive purchases they don't need; it was unfortunate, however, that you chose to beat up on the iPhone in particular.
OT: Jack Chalker is another favorite of mine; tragically, he passed away a couple of years ago:
http://www.jackchalker.com/
Bootz--no, you're not the only one; Heinlein was one of the greats.
The very first novel I ever read was "Rocket Ship Galileo".
I've also thought for years that "Tunnel in the Sky" would make a fantastic big-budget movie; if they did it right it would be a killer action/adventure/survival film. (If they did it wrong, however, it would end up being "Lord of the Flies 90210" or somesuch).
Tex--yeah, sort of; the original site was developed by hand by myself (well, I used GoLive anyway; my point is that it was developed as a "static" site, not a dynamic/database/ajax type of thing).
The client wanted to take over minor updates, so I set them up with Contribute, which is sort of halfway between a server-side and client-side collaborative web authoring engine; it's closest parallel would be FrontPage (though it's not nearly as clunky).
Unfortunately, like FrontPage, it appears to have some junk code issues of its' own...my guess is that the client was doing just what you described--making what she *thought* were minor text/link changes but actually generating a ton of crap code in the background.
Jim--thanks, but the page loads fine in a browser, it's within GoLive/DreamWeaver that it causes crashes.
I think Yofal found the issue anyway (a massive block of empty HTML tags halfway through), however.
Yofal--if you (or anyone else) is interested, I could devote one of the forums over at the Shootouts site to AAPL stock...I just replaced the old version with a new one, so it's pretty pristine at the moment anyway...
Pete--thanks for the confirmation; yeah, I considered running it through the W3C validator, but considering that even Google's homepage shows up as having 61 errors, it doesn't really help much.
Yofal--holy cow, how could I have missed that? Wow, you're right; that's probably what gummed it up. How on earth my client managed to add in that much junk code for a couple of simple link additions I have no idea...
Semi-OT: Code weirdness...
So, I set up one of my clients with Contribute, a collaborative website development program by Adobe/Macromedia, so they can take care of oddball site updates themselves without having to turn to me for everything.
For the most part, all has gone well for several months now...until this week.
For other web developer types, take a look at the source code for the following page and tell me whether you see anything suspicious:
http://www.mhsmi.org/curriculum/index.html
Nothing but text, graphics and links, with some standard Javascript and SSI code, right?
Well, don't ask me why, but SOMETHING in the code on this page causes GoLive 6, GoLive 9 *and* DreamWeaver CS3 to crash the moment you try opening this HTML file in them, or whenever you try loading the site this file is contained in. Weirdness.
Yofal--MacFixIt has a pretty detailed report about a bunch of problems people are having with the latest QuickTime update:
http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20070713094450677
Apparently in addition to Flash problems, it's causing issues with Rosetta-based apps (PPC apps running on Intel Macs).
FakeSteve on Apple's relationship with the heads of the labels:
Brutal but accurate:
http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/
"We're positioning ourselves as a caring nurturer, part shrink and part hospice worker, making these old thieves comfortable during their final days. It's sort of like working in the nursing home where Uncle Junior lives. It's hard because you know you're dealing with evil human beings but you also know that the best thing to do is just to keep them happy and quiet. So you give them their morphine and change their bed pans and tell them how important they still are. Every so often, to humor them, you have a "meeting" and pretend to "negotiate" something, but mostly you just smile while you wait for them to die. And maybe once in while when no one is looking you put a pillow over someone's face. Fair enough."
iPhone revenue--no one's mentioned the other piece of the puzzle yet...the cut they're supposedly getting of the monthly service bill from AT&T.
Assuming most people are going for the 8 GB model, that makes the avg. selling price about $580 or so. Assuming, say, 20% net profit, that's about $116 net profit per iPhone.
Assuming that AT&T agreed to give Apple as little as 5% of the monthly fee, and assuming most people go for the mid-range $80/month deal, that's another $4/month pure profit to Apple, or about $48 per year.
schtick--oh, I'll leave it there, I was just waxing poetic. Or something.
Waxing and waning--does that make me a Moonie?
In a very odd mood this week.
More fun with market caps...
Dunno why, but for some reason, your "bigger than Dell + Motorola combined" hit me more than my earlier "bigger than Yahoo/eBay/Amazon combined". Maybe because Dell (and especially Motorola) have been around longer.
Here's another eye opener: at $115 billion, AAPL is now 40% the size of MSFT. Unless Microsoft has something bigger up their sleeve than Vista and that "Surface" table thingamabob, I don't expect them to make any significant shift upwards over the next couple of years.
If Mac sales continue to go up at a 20-30% clip, iPod/iTunes sales continue at least as well as they are, and the iPhone turns into a genuine long-term smash hit, they could conceivably be nipping at MSFT's tail by 2009 or so.
Yowza, we're living in strange times indeed...