Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Financial, iPhone
Only 146k iPhone activations?
I have to admit: this is a little surprising at first glance. AT&T is reporting only 146,000 iPhone activations "in the first few days of its availability," which has led to a downturn in Apple's share price today (as of this writing it's down over 8 points to about $135). AT&T's share price is also down, despite the carrier reporting 61% growth in profits in the second quarter.Apparently, what happened is that analysts built up wild and unrealistic expectations for the iPhone launch, and with the numbers looking a bit softer than expected, the stocks are taking a hit. I think it's really much to early to say anything definite, with the 146,000 activations only covering a vague "first few days." It's still going to be a while before we know the full extent of the iPhone's market penetration, and it's certainly much too early to jump ship like so many of these skittish investors and analysts.
[via MacNN]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
alan Miller said 6:06PM on 7-24-2007
i bought an iphone but avoided activating it until the following Monday night because it was a gift. so i did not make it into the 146,000 number. yet i paid apple money for the device on launch day.
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aph3x said 6:10PM on 7-24-2007
I'd be interested to see the number of iPhones PURCHASED vs. the number activated. I bought mine and activated on Friday (existing AT&T customer). But this doesn't really suprise me since in the past month or so I've only seen 1 other person in this area with one. That said however, the local paper interviewed some 50 people if they were going to buy one and only 2 people said they were. The rest either didn't even know what it was or didn't want one.
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Donald Burr said 6:11PM on 7-24-2007
I'd wager that a LOT of people *tried* to activate their iPhones within the "first few days"; but many of them weren't able to, due to AT&T's overcrowded activation servers and the various other activation problems that have been widely reported.
Of course, I would also suspect that some people bought the iPhone for hacking or other purposes. We know that at least two iPhones have been out and out destroyed (the Blendtec one, and the one they disassembled on Revision 3's show Systm).
As a statistic, this isn't very interesting. What would be more interesting is AT&T reporting activation statistics within the first month; not even a full month has passed yet since the iPhone was released. 3 months would be another interesting statistic, as I wager a lot of people are still sitting on the fence with regard to the iPhone.
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tim said 6:12PM on 7-24-2007
i guess it makes sense if you look at ebay, craigslist, will-it-blend, etc
there are a lot of them floating around waiting to be sold again and inactivated.
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ryan said 6:17PM on 7-24-2007
Wouldn't the 146k be just in the first 2 days? That's pretty good for a short period of time, time will tell for 2nd AND 3rd quarter?
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Parker Daniel said 6:25PM on 7-24-2007
Got mine on launch day ! and i had the activation problem. I didn't activate it until 5 days later !!!
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Michael said 6:26PM on 7-24-2007
I call shenanigans on that figure. What's more likely is that was all that AT&T processed within the first few days. I'd like to see how many tried vs succeeded and of course we'd all like to just see how many were actually sold.
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BJ Nemeth said 6:53PM on 7-24-2007
"First few days" should actually read "first day and a quarter." The iPhone was released at 6:00 pm on Friday, June 29th, and the financial quarter ended the next day -- Saturday, June 30th, presumably at midnight.
So the only people that count in this 146,000 are those who successfully activated their phone by midnight Saturday -- approximately 30 hours after it was released, depending on the time zone used for the end of the financial quarter.
So that's 146,000 activations in 30 hours. That sounds much more impressive than the vague (and incorrect) "146,000 activations in the first few days," don't you think?
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Drupa said 7:05PM on 7-24-2007
Maybe folks are paying attention to the press concerning the EDGE network? My EVDO enabled Powerbook G4 gets 1900Kbs down VS. the EDGE network's 100Kbs. Our local press likened the iPhone network speed as analogous to a Ferrari being driven in a mall parking lot at Christmastime. Folks don't relaize that AT&T can't simply change this issue through software development or small tweaks to the network. It is going to take BILLIONS of dollars and MASSIVE infrstructure improvements to abandon EDGE in favor of something faster. The EVDO technology is light years ahead of what AT&T offers. It's a cryin shame. Everything else about the iPhone is cool. I don't live in a world of unprotected wifi however. This phone is dial up baby - DIAL UP!
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J Davis said 7:09PM on 7-24-2007
I think you're all missing the bigger point ... if this was just an AT&T activation snafu, why would it impact Apple's stock price? if they *really* sold 500,000 or more iPhones then the stock price wouldn't have been affected at all.
I think we have to assume this means the iPhone launch was a lot less dramatic than the early estimates. By any other comparison, they sold a lot of phones -- but when compared to the "hype" it looks like the iPhone may have been a fizzle...
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Ed said 7:11PM on 7-24-2007
How many people activating more than once?
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jim mcmurry said 7:13PM on 7-24-2007
OK, here is another way of looking at it:
ATT activations in 30 hours - 146,000
Average number per hour - 4,866.67
Now to find what the REAL number is for 2 FULL days of activations:
4,866.67 x 48 = 233,600
Now, if you really go out on a huge limb and extrapolate, you could say that in the first 5 days ATT would have activated 584,000
hahaha
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icruise said 7:17PM on 7-24-2007
Something is wrong somewhere. People were estimating initial sales of 500,000 to 700,000. There's no way that 3/4 or more of iPhone buyers had activation issues -- I heard closer to 2%. Could it be that far fewer iPhones have been sold than people thought? Maybe that's why we haven't seen any triumphant press releases from Apple about how many they've sold.
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LittleJoe said 7:30PM on 7-24-2007
I purchased in the first couple of days but did not activate until a few days later, after canceling my VZW plan etc. Im sure Im not the only one.
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T Webb said 7:37PM on 7-24-2007
9. Maybe folks are paying attention to the press concerning the EDGE network? My EVDO enabled Powerbook G4 gets 1900Kbs down VS. the EDGE network's 100Kbs. Our local press likened the iPhone network speed as analogous to a Ferrari being driven in a mall parking lot at Christmastime. Folks don't relaize that AT&T can't simply change this issue through software development or small tweaks to the network. It is going to take BILLIONS of dollars and MASSIVE infrstructure improvements to abandon EDGE in favor of something faster. The EVDO technology is light years ahead of what AT&T offers. It's a cryin shame. Everything else about the iPhone is cool. I don't live in a world of unprotected wifi however. This phone is dial up baby - DIAL UP!
Apple said they had a 3G model in the works, how can that be if AT&T/Cingular doesn't support it?
AT&T/Cingular has a 3G network in place in some cities already. Apple dropped the ball w/ implementing 3G. I'm sure it'll be out w/ the next version of iPhone. Adding it in the beginning would have increased the price of the phone big time. By waiting the phone will be cheaper to produce and that will offset the price of the 3G hardware upgrade to the device.
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Thom said 8:29PM on 7-24-2007
CNBC reported this morning that the 146K "activations" number was in fact from the start of sales on Friday, through midnight Saturday. So any sales/activations from Sunday onward are not part of this number.
While most certainly not the 700K number that was tossed around, the real number of the first whole weekend is larger than 146K, is CNBC's report is accurate.
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Zell said 8:36PM on 7-24-2007
Maybe many (like myself) tried to activate it as a pre-paid and couldn't... after hours on the phone and two trips to AT&T stores dealing with extremely rude clerks and managers.
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TuMaiKbron said 8:40PM on 7-24-2007
Forbes.com has a good take on these numbers: 146,000 activations are still more that 1 activation per second, from the time the iPhone was available on june 29th until the close of the june quarter 30 hours later. According to Forbes.com, people have gotten used to Steve Jobs magic touch and are simply expecting too much. You know, I think they're right on the money.
Read the whole think in the link and see if you agree too...
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2007/07/24/apple-jobs-earnings-tech-cx_bc_0725apple.html
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BJ Nemeth said 9:04PM on 7-24-2007
This is called "Headline Panic." A bunch of stupid people read the headline, misinterpreted it without reading (or comprehending) the entire article, and then started screaming, "The sky is falling! The sky is falling!"
I trust that the initial sales numbers were accurate. Continuing reports are that sales have stayed very strong after the initial weekend sellouts. To get 146,000 *activations* in 30 hours is impressive, and I'm sure the number went up from there based on other reports. The first 30 hours is presumably when they had the most problems, and I'm sure a lot of people were waiting to sort out their old phone (cancellation charges, etc.) before activating.
If the stock takes a dip, that's fine by me. If short-term investors can't see what an asset the iPhone has immediately become for Apple stock, that just works in the favor of long-term investors -- like me.
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ChrisM70 said 9:30PM on 7-24-2007
This is silly. They either sold 500,000 phones or they didn't. If they didn't, wouldn't a smart company like Apple make sure to correct the sales count?
I guess the haters are getting exactly what they have been looking for:
Something to complain about.
This is almost as bad as the stupid idiots I heard on the radio this morning seriously debating Apple's new idea of charging people $5 just to enter the Apple Store!
This is the reason our country is in trouble - the people buying and selling stocks are complete morons who buy and sell on any wacky positive or negative rumor.
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