AT&T reports less-than-amazing iPhone activation numbers

We knew they were coming out with a 3G one later in the year (just in time for Xmas) and I think it's to go along with AT&T's building out of their 3G network.

As for the numbers it is amazing they went down from 500,000 to 146,000 and I wonder why the big discrepency, was it the activation problems that held the numbers down for Friday Night & Saturday? or was there really that few sold over the 2 days.

I guess we will see in the 3rd Qtr what the sales are like & 4th Qtr for the 3G one.

 

I read this article in the paper this morning. It was a rather humorous way to start the day!

 

Has anyone stopped to consider that the low activation numbers may be due to the fact that its way overpriced for an EDGE phone? I've been saying this for quite some time now. My feeling is either they should have had a lower introductory price, or just wait until the 3G model was ready for release.

-Jay

 

Exactly.
Lets pay $$$$ for a phone that has the capacity of a nano, cannot do what a smartphone does, whether it is palm or wm, but say its the best thing since slice bread. Maybe in its third generation it will be a huge hit, but its not there yet.

 

I think the 500K number was an estimate for the 3-day weekend.

 

Apple Takes Hit on AT&T's iPhone Sales

Some luster may be coming off of Apple Inc.'s iPhone.

The first sales figures on the new handset, which were released yesterday following weeks of hype, disappointed Wall Street, driving down Apple's stock. The concerns have some investors re-examining their lofty iPhone expectations and speculating about the product's next version.

AT&T Inc. said yesterday when reporting its second-quarter earnings that 146,000 iPhone buyers signed up for service in the first two days of its launch. That would be wildly successful for any other consumer-electronic product but a disappointment when compared with Wall Street's sky-high expectations for the iPhone.


Apple shares, which hit a high Monday, fell $8.81, or 6.1%, to $134.89 in 4 p.m. composite trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. AT&T shares fell 35 cents to $39.68 in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading on second-quarter results roughly in line with expectations. Apple is scheduled to report its earnings for its fiscal third quarter today.

The iPhone seemed poised to disappoint, given the increasing sales expectations for the much-ballyhooed device. After the first weekend, Goldman Sachs projected sales of 700,000 phones over the first three days.

"I think it was a matter of expectations getting wildly out of control," said Andy Hargreaves, an analyst for Pacific Crest Securities, who owns shares of Apple. He had forecast 400,000 iPhones would be sold in the first weekend.

Many of the Wall Street analysts were taking their cues from the Apple stores in New York, which likely painted an overly optimistic picture of demand for the device, he said.

In an interview, AT&T Chief Financial Officer Rick Lindner said that "expectations got out of hand a little bit before the launch."

AT&T said iPhone sales "continue to be strong in July, with store traffic above historical levels." Mr. Lindner said initial customer feedback with the iPhone has been "off the charts."

When Apple reports earnings today, it will likely post different iPhone sales figures than AT&T did. That's because Apple recognizes revenue when the product is shipped, while AT&T counts it once a customer activates the phone. Some customers reported difficulty activating the phones, but Mr. Lindner said those numbers were not substantial.


"At the end of the day, the launch from our standpoint went very well," said the executive. "I think demand will sustain itself and grow as more devices get in people's hands."

AT&T hasn't released sales projections for this year, but analysts have predicted three million iPhones would be sold. Some analysts speculated yesterday that weaker demand could drive AT&T and Apple to launch a second-generation iPhone to the market sooner than expected.

AT&T's most recent quarter includes results from BellSouth Corp., which AT&T, the nation's largest telecommunications company by market capitalization, took over late last year. If the two companies had been combined in the second quarter of last year, revenue would have increased 2% to $29.8 billion.

Apple spokesman Steve Dowling declined to discuss the iPhone-activation figure. Mr. Dowling said the company has announced no changes to its previous goal of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008.

Apple Takes Hit On AT&T's iPhone Sales - WSJ.com

 

I can't figure out those that have paid that much money for this phone, it is amazing though you hear people still talking about it (including here) so the publicity worked for Apple.

I messed with the one at one of the corp. stores in town & the grapics are amazing, I had a heck of a time typing out an SMS because my fingers kept hitting the wrong keys, guess it's a thing to get use to.
I would't pay that much for this phone, as you said I would rather spend the money for a Smart Phone or BB and have more functions & buy an iPod for music.

 

Any particular reason this is posted in the Verizon forum instead of AT&Tingular or Wireless News?

 

I am guessing it is because VZW-Lover started it. I will move it.

 

They activated 146,000 in the 2nd Quarter, which ended on June 30. The iPhone launched June 29.

No one seems to account for the ones that were bought, left unactivated for a few days, the ones that weren't activated because of the server jam, and the ones sold on eBay.

In the first 30 hours, they sold close to 300,000.
And they've probably gone over 500,000 as of now.

 

That's a good point. One thing is how many they sold and another very different thing is how many were activated. I don't see why they have to emphasize so much on the 29th and 30th. The activations for those two days were 146,000, but who knows how many were sold. I'm sure they sold a lot more than that in those two days.

 

I thought the bigger deal was not that 146,000 were activated (I don't care if 2 million were activated if 1.95 million of them already used ATT), but that it indicated that even if the number of activations has since doubled, or even tripled, it is still lagging behind expectations...which in the end means less sales for Apple and less new subs for ATT.

 

It may mean more "delayed" sales, but not necessarily less sales. Many people are waiting for the price to come down, others are waiting for their contracts to end. Others are just waiting for the next generation.

 

What? Over-hype followed by dissappointment? Who would have guessed?

 

Apple announced 270,000 sales, AT&T announced 146,000 activations. Some of the discrepancy lies in phones that were "sold" to AT&T but are in some part of the distribution chain (not in the store yet), part is with the activation issues, etc.

 

And as TSizzles stated sold on Ebay that had not been activated in those 1 1/2 days. So a portion of the 270,000 ended up there too.

 

I got to use the iphone for a whole day and I have to say the user interface is nice. I also had a hard time with text input. As to EDGE, I would say a device like this for sure desserves a UMTS band as it is not as quick as I thought it would be (the BB I have loads much quicker). Any way, The sales figures were 270,000 sold by Aplle to AT&T and we have not heard what was in the Apple stores. In addition, a lot of the AT&T stores ran out of stock on the iphone and this means to me that Apple produced over 500,00 of which 270,000 wnet to at&t and the rest went to Apple stores. I still say the real numbers will show at the end of this qtr and we will most likely see better numbers. Now since I was away, was the intro on the 28th or the 29th? If it was on the 29th then this realy is a bit over 1 day of iphone sales as the sale launch was after 6 PM.

 

The intro was on the 29th, so there were technically about 30 hours of sales (in each local time zone) in the 2nd quarter.

 

Actually the hours for sale was from 6 PM Friday Night till 10 PM and from I believe 9 AM till 10 PM Saturday for a total of 17 Hours.

 

Which translate to about 8588 units sold per hour. I would say that this is very good.

 

You could buy anytime on apple.com, right?

 

I don't know if they made them available on Apple.com that weekend or not, the way everything seemed to go that weekend was at the stores only.
I may be wrong though.

 

It was not available on Apple.com for a few days later (I think it was about a wek later).