Can anyone put that into context?
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.
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?
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-...]
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.
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.
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.
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.
[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.
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.
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.