iPhone 4S First Weekend Sales Top Four Million
apple.com
apple.com
One wonders where Technology mags find all these seemingly countless analysts who deride every iPhone (or at least are unimpressed)...
But this sales boost will confirm to Apple that it's ok for them to just release the same phone for 2 years with some spec upgrades in the 2nd year.
The 3GS was already persuasive evidence of this pattern, though.
In a way, you could say the iPhone 4S is just an original iPhone with some spec upgrades.
No, I don't think everyone knows that. If we learned anything from the past few Apple product launches, it's that customers aren't shy about complaining even if they aren't completely sure what they're complaining about.
But this sales boost will confirm to Apple that it's ok for them to just release the same phone for 2 years with some spec upgrades in the 2nd year.
It is okay. The economics behind producing this many millions of a devices doesn't allow them to change the design every single year without jacking up the price. And for what?
A "tick tock" schedule, like the one Intel has adopted, makes tons of sense for Apple too. You just can't completely rethink a product design every year once it's matured.
And if you don't think they needed to change the design of the phone this time, just take a look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e...
No wonder nobody wanted to "copy" its design and build. It's so weak, even some plastic phones are more solid than it.
Similarly, you don't see other manufacturers producing phones that they intend to still thoroughly support in a couple years time, which is why there is so much fragmentation in the Android ecosystem.
I think this is a key thing in Apple's market strategy across the board - you're not just buying hardware that will be out of date in 6 months time, you're purchasing a utility which will be more or less current for a couple years to come (like what we've seen in Macs).
I think its a smart move. It builds trust with the user base.
See the Motorola Droid 2 and 3, and the HTC Wildfire S and Desire S. And Apple's own 3GS. Essentially the same physical design as their predecessors, but faster. Actually, Samsung is perhaps the only major phone manufacturer who _doesn't_ do this; most of their phones do change reasonably dramatically on every revision.
It really is kind of remarkable how subtle the changes have been with iOS and the iPhone. A front shot of an iPhone on its home screen would show nothing new to someone in 2007 using the first iPhone (aside from the resolution increase). But I'd argue that what seems like a liability to industry-watchers and tech enthusiasts is a profound strength for everyone else - consistency and familiarity trump novelty.
Edge/GPRS -> 3G data speeds is a massive improvement on it's own.
Why change the design of a product if that design still works? After all, how many radically different washing machine models have you seen in the last ten or fifteen years?
You mean like the 3GS? Or, in Android-land, the Droid 2, Droid 3, Atrix 2, HTC Desire/Wildfire S etc.? It's hardly that strange a thing to do. Keep the design for a year, make the device enormously faster. This is par for the course in computers, and becoming increasingly common on the mobile market.
What disappointed a lot of people is they expected a new iphone lite to compete with android at the bottom of the market.
When you think about it though, they sell a $700 phone as their main product, they aren't going to cannibalize it with a $150 phone. It's also likely they can't make a better new phone then the 3GS cheaper then the 3GS due to the scale they've built. So they're going to ride the 3GS to 30 and 40 million units a quarter.
Exactly. Why spend design resources and marketing resources on building a "low-end" phone when they already have proven (and popular) models that satisfy that demand? Presumably, they've also optimized the production lines, etc for those units to minimize costs and waste.
The $0 (w/ contract) iPhone 3GS is still a great phone for people who don't care about adding apps. (And if you're not already on an iPhone or Android at this point, you probably don't.
The $99 (w/ contract) iPhone 4 is a great phone if you want iOS 5 but you're on a budget - and nobody will even know you're not using the latest design (at least for a year.)
Or, er, even for people who do. Almost all iPhone apps work fine in the 3GS.
> The $99 (w/ contract) iPhone 4 is a great phone if you want iOS 5 but you're on a budget
You get iOS 5 with the 3GS. You may be thinking of the 3G (from 2008).
My sense however has been that the performance of the iPhone 3GS does affect some apps.
1. Many iPhone 3G/3GS users never upgraded to 4. This is their chance.
2. iOS5 has many compelling features. Us techies forget that the average joe doesn't really understand upgrades, versioning, etc. Phones are sold as both a hardware and software solution and so many of the iOS5 features are inherently see as being a feature of 4S and not just a feature of any iOS device.
Many of the tech blogs are looking at a technology aspect (RAM oh my!) and not towards how the common man thinks and acts.
The same will be true of the Samsung Galaxy S2 - those users won't be queuing up to replace it after 12 months (or if they are it's a bad sign rather than a good one).
You're not wrong about it as a factor, just saying that analysts should get this and figure it in.
The 4S is looking mighty tempting though, and I was going to get it unlocked. (Because I hate being locked to three year contracts, stupid Canada.)
You won't be disappointed, the 4S is so much faster at everything. And Siri is amazing. The only downside is that I have started looking for the 'Siri button' on my iMac.
Glad to hear that the upgrade is worth it though!
However, iPhone 3GS users for the most part have had the phone 24 to 12 months, and if you are eligible for an upgrade with AT&T, it seems you pay the iphone subsidy each month (by my estimates, around $50 per month) regardless of whether you upgrade or not. So it makes sense to upgrade and sell the new phone on ebay if you want to keep your 3GS.
I was also basing this off of the Sprint iPhone costing roughly the same as the ATT iPhone, and Virgin Mobile supposedly using the Sprint network.
Potential customers for iPhone 4 launch: 90 million (AT&T).
Potential customers for iPhone 4S launch: 240 million (AT&T, Verizon, Sprint).
> iPhone 4S is available today in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK
Not too happy with myself for giving in to standing 2 hours in line though. I should have at least waited a day or two.
So everyone was queuing here unfortunately.
I was amazed at the lack of 3GS phones in the line. So many people with 4s upgrading. Also many people buying 2 each, perhaps because in Canada you can buy them unlocked.
I wonder what were other locations were like?
If Apple had indeed made a new form factor, would the sales have been 4 million or do you think they would be more than that? How much more?
They could sell 50 million phones and you'd still be able to write this comment. "How much more than 50MM phones would they have sold with a different form factor?"
These sales numbers do in fact make the analysts look stupid.
The market is definitely bigger, not to mention Verizon and Sprint getting the iPhone, so the number aren't directly comparable.
>They could sell 50 million phones and you'd still be able to write this comment. "How much more than 50MM phones would they have sold with a different form factor?"
And that question would still be valid. I was basing my question on my personal experience that many of my friends with a 3GS immediately jumped on the iPhone 4 regardless of contracts, but aren't that interested into moving to the 4S. I know that's just an anecdote, maybe others can share theirs.
>These sales numbers do in fact make the analysts look stupid.
Maybe I missed some of the articles, but the ones I read stated that the release was somewhat disappointing but the phone will still sell a lot. Apple has built a reputation for suddenly unveiling groundbreaking design and hardware and this lead to people expecting(wrongly or rightly) them to repeat it.
Okay. Most people I know who had a 3GS still have a 3GS; some are thinking of getting a 4S to replace it. Very few replaced it with a 4.
I went from a 3G to a 4 myself.
I said, "I don't think it's inconsistent that this is a somewhat disappointing rev, yet will likely be their best-selling phone to date."
Lets look at this quote (http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/print.php/3668131):
"In the first month of general availability, sales of Vista exceeded 20 million licenses, which is more than double the initial pace of sales for XP, which sold 17 million units in the first two months following its August 2001 release."
And Vista, unlike the 4s, isn't strictly superior to its predecessor.
People who upgrade late, need to feel like they're upgrading to a phone that's competitive with other new releases .. the iPhone 4S provides that feeling. I don't think it's revolutionary by any stretch of the imagination.
To quote myself from another post on this page "The missed expectations were held by fanboy contributors to MacRumors and the equally witless anti-fanboys (fandroids for the most part) who chimed in with "Ha! No new case after 18 months? Lame! Fail!""
as for the rumors, i think that they are real devices—i actually expected a 3G ipod touch with a bigger screen—but maybe it is a possible design for the iphone 5. because we don't see the lead times from apple like we see from other electronics companies doesn't mean they aren't there. the retina display ipad 2, the iphone 5, these things surely exist in some capacity as they figure out not just how to make them, but how to make enough of them to meet demand. i think apple is finding it much more difficult to keep new devices secret and because of the short time between announcement and delivery with increased production ramp-ups and internal lead times, apple seems to be experiencing and anti-osbourne effect—the rumors of the device after the next device surfacing and disappointing all of those who have come to expect so much from apple.
I wonder if Steve Jobs being dead actually is a reason for increased sales. It could be like a singer dying and people buy more of his records.
On the other hand it might be just that many people held back buying the iphone 4 and waited for the next one.
[1]http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/228095/20111010/iphone-4s-fo... [2]http://sanfrancisco.ibtimes.com/articles/228902/20111011/iph...
Perhaps the buyers were at the end of a contract, or looking to upgrade, or simply saw the best phone on the market.
iOS devices have continually seen 100% year-over-year growth so it's not really a surprise, especially when they're available on more carriers.
I was on a dumbphone contract on verizon and waited on the iphone 4 until the 4s was released. Personally I wanted an iphone and would have bought on any form factor they released
And it's a damn good phone.
In a thread that otherwise feels like a chatroom, what made the comment particularly unacceptable?
Sadly, this is becoming more common on HN. Have seen this in the evolution of /., before it got completely overrun.
When a band breaks up or a musician dies, the run on music is to the tune of 9.99, and usually less because they sell them as loss leaders.
At least from personal experience, most Apple Retail Stores didn't seem to exhaust their supply on Friday the 14th. So having more units on hand (and the usual second round of deliveries on Saturday), plus the pre-order records contributed to breaking this record. Simply having the product available was probably the biggest factor, though pre-orders (confirmation tomorrow) do indicate that demand may have increased over the iPhone 4, although some of that that could be seasonal demand.
I'm not sure on carrier counts (iPhone 4 not known, iPhone 4S launched on 22 carriers). In the US, the iPhone 4 only launched on one carrier, whereas the 4S launched on three. That's also going to be a significant contributing factor in increasing its effective availability to buyers.
With the 4S, we have a hundred of the damn things sitting on our shelves. If it's a similar thing in other countries, then that's probably a large part of why (vodafoneAU staff here).
Anyone care to throw some more Android or other device numbers into the mix? Blackberry numbers might be a fun comparison to see, for instance.
The best Android phone but nowhere near consensus as best phone. The iphone 4 probably sold 10 million just in this past quarter, it's 5th on the market.
"It's the best Android smartphone yet, but more importantly, it might well be the best smartphone, period." http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/28/samsung-galaxy-s-ii-revie...
"Samsung Galaxy S2 (or S II) is arguably the best smartphone currently in the market." http://www.androidauthority.com/top-5-android-smartphones-ch...
Maybe "heralded by some" would have been a better choice of words. The point was that people seem to love that phone, and the 4S, which some have called a disappointment, has already reached 40% of the Galaxy S II's sales numbers within just days of being released.
Increases in non-US availability notwithstanding, the 2.5x increase in US availability is close to the 2.3x increase in sales. I would expect AT&T sales to be down from the iPhone 4 and Verizon/Sprint to be up.
Sprint likely offered early upgrades to most customers who want an iPhone in order to keep them from going to Verizon or AT&T. There's probably a lot of pent up demand on Verizon from users who skipped the mid-cycle CDMA iPhone 4 in hopes of a newer iPhone a few months later. On the flip side, AT&T has been a lot stricter about early upgrades this year, leaving many who spend less than $100/month without a full subsidy until November. This is different from their past policy, where early adopter of the previous-gen iPhone users were granted early upgrades.
Microsoft's Kinect currently holds the record for Fastest-Selling Consumer Electronics Device. It sold 8 million in the first 60 days at a rate of about 134,000/day
[Edit: source http://community.guinnessworldrecords.com/_Kinect-Confirmed-...]
And assuming they're evenly split between 16GB and 32GB (it's not, there's also 64GB models in the mix), it's over a billion dollars in revenue before carrier subsidies.
And considering that Apple doesn't care about the subsidies (they get paid up front), it's a whole lot of revenue.
At that number, we're a little over $2.5 billion. Staggering.
This usually brings in lots of new people, but some are starting to get confused as both Timmy and Jimmy are selling so many different brands of lemonade.
Now Lisa moves into the block. She spends some time in her garage trying different lemonade flavors until she finds one she really likes herself. Then she goes out on the street to sell the lemonade.
People really like Lisa's lemonade. Its taste is distinctly different from Timmy's and Jimmy's. People start telling their friends about Lisa's lemonade! Soon people from the other block are starting to take the two minute bicycle ride just to get Lisa's lemonade!
When Lisa after a few weeks introduces a slightly refined version of her new lemonade she sells as much lemonade in an afternoon as Timmy and Jimmy together sell in a month!
After a while Timmy and Jimmy get angry. One night Timmy sneaks over and steals some of Lisa's lemonade. He moves his stand right next to Lisa's and even put up a sign saying "Lisa's lemonade" on his stand. The next day he shows up wearing Lisa's clothes.
Some of the customers get confused and accidentally but Timmy's lemonade instead of Lisa's.
Lisa goes home and cries to mommy. The parents get together and decide to ban Timmy from selling lemonade out on the street.
How's that for context?
20 million iOS 5 users in 2 days is a very quick ramp up.
First-world problems.... ;-)
What is wrong with the iphone 3G?
*(ignore that PPC iMac released before the Intel switch)
It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
You're getting a massively improved camera (including flash, increased resolution, HD video, HDR), front facing camera, retina display, improved processor, SIRI, new form factor, iOS5 running at an acceptable speed (it's a dog on the 3GS), potentially greater capacity if you go for the 64Gb.
The fact it's not a major change from the 4 in some regards surely isn't a factor for those of us with 3GSs as we never had the 4? It's certainly a major change from the 3GS.
Use either the AT&T or T-Mobile prepaid plans. (You are pretty much guaranteed to save money over the cost of a two-year contract.)
Sell your 4S on Ebay after a year, and buy your new phone.
Voila. First-world problem solved. (This is what I'll be doing, anyways.)
Bonus: if AT&T or T-Mobile turn out to have bad reception in your apartment, you can effortlessly switch to the other carrier.
I'm confused. As I understand it, they are Monthly plans - you can get them online. I just did it two weeks ago:
If the 5 comes, there are still so many4 and 4S (and 3GS) phones in the market, apps are still going to work really well on it for a long time.
I do much less on my phone now that I have my iPad.
The camera, one of the major reasons for the upgrade, is unlikely to get much better on the 5.
If it turns out I'm wrong, I'll sale it jail broken (or pass it down to one of my kids in the family plan :). But I would be greatly surprised if a nee one shows up before next fall. I think Apple is OK with moving the iPhones to the holiday release schedule.
This is what happens when there is an 18 month period between product refreshes of a popular phone. It turns out that several million people have been holding out for "the next iPhone" for the last several months. Is this surprising anyone?
or for something more visual
http://trendistic.indextank.com/siri
People are talking more about Siri since the release date (on average) and for more dramatic effect, look at the results over a 30 day timeframe - not bad considering that Siri is essentially 2 year old technology.
Yeah, people are impressed by Siri, even if they just want to make fun of it (in Australia we call that Tall Poppy Syndrome)