Posts tagged Analyst at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Posts with tag analyst

iPhone to become subsidized, non-exclusive?

Posted May 5th 2008 10:00PM by Cory Bohon
Filed under: iPhone

RBC analyst Mark Abramsky says that the iPhone will exceed its projected goal of 10 million devices sold in 2008 -- possibly by selling upwards of 14 million. How is Apple going to get these sales figures? Well, Abramsky suggests that AT&T could subsidize the iPhone by up to $200 for the 8GB model. This would mean the 8GB iPhone could sell for as little as $199 (previously rumored here); and possibly increase sales by 50 to 100 percent. According to Abramsky, this would mean Apple would have to drop revenue sharing with AT&T.

Mr. Abramsky also believes that Apple will start to sell unlocked iPhones (or iPhones without a specific carrier) without a premium over the AT&T iPhones. He suggest that unlocked iPhones could increase the adoption rate by two to three times for Apple's phone.

All of Abramsky's conjecture hinges on Apple and AT&T agreeing to end their 5 year exclusivity agreement early. We here at TUAW see no real reason for either company to agree to that, at least not in the States.

NYT on gray market iPhones

Posted Feb 19th 2008 10:00AM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Retail, Apple Financial, Apple, iPhone

The Gray Lady has published a piece examining the so-called "gray market" for iPhones in China -- legitimate products transferred through not-so-legitimate channels. Though we of course have no idea how prevalent this was before the rise of the 'Net, I have to think that the shrinking global neighborhood contributes to this a lot -- it's much easier to ask someone in another country to buy something for you when you talk to them every day on Twitter.

The NYT puts the number of non-AT&T iPhones at a whopping 1.4 million, but of course that includes unlocked phones all over the world, and people who are using iPhones without actually activating them. So we're not exactly sure of the number of iPhones floating around China (where Apple hasn't made a deal to provide official service yet). Analyst Charles Wolf says that Apple definitely enjoys listing the gray market iPhones in their sales numbers, but that the lack of an AT&T agreement with the phone sales undermines their contract plan.

However, he admits also that making the decision to sell the phones unlocked would have earned Apple more demand in the first place, so it's six in one, half-dozen in the other. There's no word on how the impending release of the SDK might affect the sale of phones for unlocking, either. But for now, it's clear that the gray market is a substantial and yet very much unknown quantity of Apple's iPhone business.

Analyst: 10% of iPhones sold to unlockers

Posted Oct 4th 2007 3:30PM by Mike Schramm
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Retail, Apple Financial, Apple, iPhone

Apple Insider has an analyst saying that 10% of iPhones sold in Apple stores in September were being bought by people who are then turning around and selling them unlocked. That seems like a big number when you picture the situation Gene Munster, the analyst, describes: "one Apple employee acknowledged that customers were buying five iPhones per store visit in order to turn around and resell them unlocked."

But is it really that big? 90% of people buying iPhones are sticking with AT&T, so considering that Apple got the support of a network and a slice of the service plan profits, a number like 10% of unlocks actually seems to me like it validates Apple's choice to sell the phone locked. SDKs, jailbreaks, and customer rights (oh my) aside, if only 10% of iPhones out there are unlocked (and the number's probably much lower, as all the iPhones sold before September were probably not unlocked at all), Apple's original decision was justified, in my view.

But I'm not defending them for breaking things with 1.1.1. Apple hasn't released the numbers on September sales yet, but 10% of a lot is still a lot, in terms of bricked iPhones because of the unlock crackdown. I haven't heard any tales of folks who paid a lot for an unlocked iPhone and then got a brick with the 1.1.1 update, but I'm sure they're out there and unhappy.

How much are you worth to Apple?

Posted Jul 20th 2007 4:00PM by Erica Sadun
Filed under: Apple Corporate, Apple Financial, iPhone

Think you're worth 3 bucks a month? Or even 11 bucks a month? Those are the figures being bandied around today over at Seeking Alpha regarding the secret details of AT&T's revenue sharing with Apple. The post suggests that AT&T may be paying Apple $3/month for AT&T customers who switch to the iPhone and $11/month for iPhone customers who have switched carriers to AT&T. They cite a recent Piper Jaffray research note authored by analyst Gene Munster.

That sounds like a lot of money to me (especially for the switching customers) heading off to Apple along with the revenues on the physical iPhone sales.

Apple's US market share still falling and rising with the tides

Posted Oct 19th 2006 2:00PM by David Chartier
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Retail

Yesterday's prelim 4th quarter report was great news for Apple's health as a manufacturer of personal computers - they shipped over 1.6 million Macs, the most ever in a quarter and 30% more than the previous quarter. Today's news of a rise to 6.1 percent market share in the U.S. from Gartner, however, has the Mac web doing the market share dance all over again, as just a year ago this month it was the NPD Group reporting that Apple's U.S. market share - excluding online sales - had risen to 6.6 percent. The confusion ensues when considering MacNN's conflicting report from Gartner claiming Apple's U.S. share just rose to 6.1 percent. Of course where and how these different groups are getting their numbers is unbeknownst to this blogger, but methinks something might have been lost in translation between all these analysts.

Still, while market share numbers might be getting a little fuzzy as of late, we can at least trust Apple's announcement of selling the most.Macs.evar in a quarter, and that's alright with me.

On iPod pricing, competition and the value of a full package

Posted Sep 18th 2006 1:00PM by David Chartier
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, iPod Family, Retail

I've noticed a couple reports from analyst firm Gartner Research that claim Apple's pricing on the new iPods betrays an increased interest in profit margins at the expense of market share. These reports focus on the iPod nano's pricing of $199/4GB and $249/8GB as being a bit high, given their estimated materials cost of $90 and $130, respectively. Admittedly, similar players from competitors such as Creative do beat out Apple in pricing; the ZEN V 4GB player is only $159.99 - but what rulebook dictates that a higher price on one particular member of a product family (by and far the most popular member) definitively means the company doesn't care about market share?

These reports don't seem to mention anything about the nano's big brother (unless MacNN and Playlist used some sneaky cut and pasting techniques), where Apple is competing quite well: they dropped their 30GB iPod price to match that of Creative's 30GB ZEN Vision:M ($249), and the 60GB ZEN Vision:M (if you can find it on their site), is reportedly $399 - a full $50 more expensive for 20GB of less storage.

Gartner's claim that competitors like Creative and Microsoft's new Zune could start chomping at the iPod's market share, based solely on the profit margins of one member of the family, also doesn't seem to take into account the value of the full package that Apple's iPod offers, such as seamless, 'it just works' integration with a leading digital media store (maybe Gatner simply forgot that the existence of Apple's margin-thin digital store leans fairly heavily on the popularity of the iPod).

While there are plenty of consumers out there to whom a $40 difference between an iPod nano and a ZEN V can (understandably) make or break a purchase, the are still other important factors consumers can evaluate for a DAP purchase. Unfortunately, some of these elements aren't capable of being factored into an analyst's equations, but Apple is clearly still banking on their weight with a consumer's dollar.

#	Blogger	Posts	Cmts
1	Cory Bohon	89	1
2	Robert Palmer	65	45
3	Steven Sande	59	22
4	Scott McNulty	40	0
5	Mat Lu	40	10
6	Dave Caolo	38	0
7	Erica Sadun	28	2
8	Brett Terpstra	24	0
9	Mike Schramm	20	1
10	Michael Rose	11	32
11	Christina Warren	10	38
12	Joshua Ellis	3	2
13	Lisa Hoover	2	6
14	Chris Ullrich	2	2

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iPhone to become subsidized, non-exclusive?

NYT on gray market iPhones

Analyst: 10% of iPhones sold to unlockers

How much are you worth to Apple?

Apple's US market share still falling and rising with the tides

On iPod pricing, competition and the value of a full package

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