Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Financial
More reflections on Apple's 07Q4 earnings report
I've been catching up on the Apple financial news today after yesterday's nigh-incomprehensibly strong results and the analyst conference call. A few items that stand out:A huge barrelful of unlocked iPhones. The announced estimate of phones sold to presumptive unlockers -- 250,000 -- was so high that some questioned whether I heard it correctly (including me). Apple, of course, knows both how many iPhones have been sold and how many AT&T contracts have been activated, so barring a large quantity of phones purchased as gifts and languishing in underwear drawers, that number has to be taken at face value. Our commenters also note that iPhone bulk purchases may be under tighter control now, and unlocked iPhones are readily available for purchase in the Far East.
With the fraction of iPhones sold to unlockers edging towards 20%, there has to be a powerful cognitive and contractual dissonance at work in the braintrust at One Infinite Loop. On the one hand, there's no subscription revenue from AT&T for those phones; on the other, hey, that's an additional 250K phones sold, not a bad thing. It will be very interesting to follow this number quarter-over-quarter and see if the legitimate EU introduction lowers the demand for unlocked devices.
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