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AT&T Sold Out of iPhones

thjatty said:
And those folks with no lives waited in line for what???? Probably the same people waiting in line for Star Wars and Harry Potter premieres...
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I'm sort of disappointed by how hateful some of the comments are toward the people who chose to camp out. Those people weren't necessarily doing it to be first in line. They were doing it for the same reason Grateful Dead fans used to go to GD shows repeatedly--to be part of the hype and joy, to have some fun and be with like-minded people wanting to experience the same. I think that's just fine. I don't get why people dump on those who want to camp out. Big deal. Who are they hurting? I sometimes think people are jealous and would love to be able to be part of that. I don't know. I don't get the judging and condemning going on.

BTW, the Star Wars fans you're alluding to often camp out and link that to charity (i.e., getting people to sponsor them.) These people aren't always just losers who have "no lives."
 
Number of Phones sold = Number of Lines Activated ...

Hey guys, wouldn't it be easy to identify the number of phones sold?

Number of Phones sold = Number of Lines Activated
Number of Lines Activated can be inferred by the web order number. If we assumed that these numbers started at 1 and incremented for each activation, we should know the number of activated accounts which would be the number of iPhones sold.

You also need to factor in the orders that were cancelled and reentered due to error in the original activation.

I just got my Order ID. It is 878xxx. Going by this, I would say that around 800K+ iPhones were sold and activated. (Assuming ~50K issues with activation). This would pretty much hit their target for the weekend.
 
Panu said:
It is very disappointing to go to a store and find that they don't have the merchandise you want to buy, but it costs money to stock stores. There are 1,800 AT&T stores and 162 Apple stores. If we assume a 50% markup on the iPhone, it cost over a half million dollars just to put one iPhone in each store. If each store had an average of 20 iPhones, they had to front over $10 million on speculation that the merchandise would move. That's a lot of money.

Apple and AT&T are businesses, not philanthropic charities, so they have to estimate the demand, figure how much money they can spend on a product launch, the risk of demand not being high enough on the first day, the willingness of the bank to accept their sales projections, the capacity of the manufacturers, the reality of overseas shipping, the capacity of the shipping companies to deliver the merchandise, the capacity of the stores to stock the merchandise, and how many boxes the employees could receive and unpack in the available time.

There was a company that had unprecendented demand for their first computer. They rushed it to market, and as a result, the first run had a lot of quality problems. That earned the computer the nickname "Trash 80" and they never overcame that initial impression.

Apple would rather face a small shortage than destroy its corporate image and lose its customers. So I think they did a good job of balancing all the factors.

Now that they have sold all those iPhones, they have the money for the next batch.
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There ia one problem with your theory - Apple has a cash stockpile of over $10 billion and does not need to borrow money to manufacture / ship / stock the new products.
 
donlphi said:
Just won enough money in Vegas to buy an iPHONE, but they were sold out today, so YEAH... they sold out in SOME stores.
😡

Whoever is reporting Apple store iPHONE inventory is looking at some fabricated information or they are looking at yesterday morning's information.
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Are you serious? Were you buying an iPhone in Vegas Fashion Show Mall store?

I, like you, tried to gamble my iPhone and lost $600... Then I still couldn't resist the temptation so I still went ahead and buy one (from the Fashion Show apple store). So are you telling me that they sold out already? Whew I am glad I bought it on Friday then.
 
Death Star is the worst.

I waited at a ATT store in Jersey City, they only had 30. I ordered mine but I decided to go over to soho and man, they could have built a wall with the amoutn of inventory they had. I felt dumb for going to ATT and waiting. I also got a preapproval from the ATT store but it was not on my receipt which meant that I had to go back to the ATT store again for them to give it to me. The store manager would not come out from the back area of the store. They would up giving me the wrong number again. They claim they've never seen this number before so they didn't know what it was. I called ATT and finally got someone who knew how to get me the code. I'm gonna blow up every ATT line I can find today and demand the auth code be sent through to my phone immediately until one of those boneheads actually does it. So now I'm the proud owner of 2 8gig 😕 iphones because they wouldn't tell us the truth about the inventory. I will never do business with these people again.😱

EDIT: About waiting for a new product to launch. I was at the soho apple store when the 3 gen ipod launched. I had a good time doing that it felt good to get that ipod from apple they made you feel good about the purchase. ATT, I just wanted to take a good shower and try to pretend it never happened. It was that slimy.
 
ladeer said:
Are you serious? Were you buying an iPhone in Vegas Fashion Show Mall store?

I, like you, tried to gamble my iPhone and lost $600... Then I still couldn't resist the temptation so I still went ahead and buy one (from the Fashion Show apple store). So are you telling me that they sold out already? Whew I am glad I bought it on Friday then.
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Yea the online indicator shows fashion show out of stock. Which should be no surprise given that its right on the strip. If the other Apple store down near Fry's were open already, they'd have less foot traffic.

I waited 8 hrs at the apple store on friday. Kinda feel bad that I didnt need to wait. But oh well.
 
SirOmega said:
Yea the online indicator shows fashion show out of stock. Which should be no surprise given that its right on the strip. If the other Apple store down near Fry's were open already, they'd have less foot traffic.

I waited 8 hrs at the apple store on friday. Kinda feel bad that I didnt need to wait. But oh well.
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I camped out over 30 hours for the iPhone- and really enjoyed every minute of it. I met a lot of cool people, and now the people in the ATT store will know me for life 😎
My brother went down to the local apple store about 11:45 PM and bought an iPhone with NO wait. Do I regret waiting in line? nope. Would I do it again? yes. Am I going to be camping out for the next product that warrents it? 100% yes.
 
It might actually be cheaper to buy a phone on eBay now. For example, I just saw a 8 gig go for $625. That is less than you'd pay in most places when you consider sales tax. Plus it includes free shipping. Finally, if you live a ways (say, an hour or more) from an Apple store, you're saving a lot of money on gas.

It is nice to see all these eBay speculators getting their asses handed too them. Considering they paid sales tax, shipping costs, listing fees, and paypal fees, they're losing $$$. It is like all the idiot investors that drove up home prices over the last few years- now they are foreclosing.
 
I just returned from Europe last night and the Continental lost my baggage ...
anyway, where should I go to buy my iPhone ??
there's no Apple store nearby !
 
Returning mine on Monday

It's been a nightmare activation experience and I have been a longtime Cingular customer. 🙁
 
I went to an AT&T store in Dunkirk, Maryland. It is somewhat of an rural location.
I was #22 in line. After about nine people were let into the store, we found out they had sold out of the 8GB's.
People in line were upset. You could purchase an 8GB and they would mail it to you. Supposedly faster than if you bought it online.

I wanted the 8GB, but didn't want to wait any longer, so I got the 4GB. I was a little upset, but I don't have an iPod, so I don't have any songs/videos to transfer to my iPhone.

4GB's will suit my needs, but, I can't believe they only had around nine 8GB's in stock.
That is crazy. I know they must have figured (incorrectly, obviously) that most would want the 4GB 'cause it's cheaper, but come on, NINE??
 
I bought my iPod on launch day at an ATT store in NoVa. Apparently I bought the 2nd to last 8GB, and they shortly sold out of 4GBs. The next day I went back in to buy a case and noticed they had rec'd a few more cases of iPhones, and a couple people were w/ associates buying. So while ATT might have sold out of their paltry stock on launch day (I think the avg store got 30 to 40 in) apparently some restocked the next day. I was in the store around 2pm. No idea if they have any left now, but the iPhones do not seem to be "rare," or hard to find. Apple has done a great job with distribution and supply this time. They have learned from the iPod mini and Nano 1.0 supply fiasco.
 
paja said:
It's been a nightmare activation experience and I have been a longtime Cingular customer. 🙁
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I hear reports of this and am totally confused. I activated mine yesterday morning. It took about 2 min. to fill in the info and bam my phone was activated almost instantly. I did do the pre-approval, so maybe that helped. Even if I had activation problems I'm not sure I'd return the phone over that issue. My Treo 700p seems like such an old school clunker now.
 
Iroganai said:
I just returned from Europe last night and the Continental lost my baggage ...
anyway, where should I go to buy my iPhone ??
there's no Apple store nearby !
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Drive into the city. As of last night the Soho and 5th ave store still had stock.
 
slackpacker said:
You can keep your opinions to yourself though
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I don't get why you would make a comment like that. While it is your right to say that, it's just rude. You are telling other people to just shut up all while not doing so yourself. I call double standard on your part.
 
So with all these numbers being sold being thrown around, has the launch been successful? How many do apple need people to buy for it to be in profit and to silence the critics? I guess we'll find out at the next keynote.
 
Frisco said:
Get them while you still can. iPhones are hot! I am predicting $750,000 sold over the weekend.
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Let's do some quick math. If all of the 1,800 AT&T store got 20 iPhones that would be 36,000 and let's just say they were all the 4GB model (I know that is not true but let's keep this simple), then 36000 x 499 = $17,964,000.00.

Now that's an impressive number for two days of sales, let's cut that number in half and we have $8,982,000.00.

Again, an impressive number. And that's not counting the Apple Stores.

The initial run of iPhones is 3 million units. So if Apple sold just 1/3 of those that's $499,000,000.00.

I can't wait to see this quarter's numbers!
 
I was one of the last people (2nd or 3rd to last) that was able to get an 8 gig iPhone at the Nashville, TN Apple store on Saturday. One of guys working there said that they are opening at 9:00 AM everyday and expect to have a new shipment of phones everyday (for at least the next couple of weeks).

I don't know how many they had when they opened but by 11:30 or so they where out. There where some 4 gigs left (not for sure how many but maybe around 15 or 20)
 
The Apple stores got absolutely massive shipments. From the number of people in and out of the the 5th Avenue store, I would estimate that they received something like 3000 units on day one. Apple Stores still having stock means nothing.

You can be sure that Apple paid attention to the screwups repeatedly made by the video game console makers and determined that they weren't going to let the units and dollars go to speculators. The strategy of letting AT&T stores sell out will prove to be genius as they will have it both ways (the hysteria causes by "shortages" and the goodwill of customers who enjoyed a smooth purchasing experience at the Apple Stores).
 
NJ Apple Stores

Iroganai said:
I just returned from Europe last night and the Continental lost my baggage ...
anyway, where should I go to buy my iPhone ??
there's no Apple store nearby !
Click to expand...

Last time I checked, only Atlantic City was out in New Jersey. You could make a jaunt to the Short Hills Mall or another of the Apple Stores and you'd probably do just fine.

It's certainly worth the trip and I'd give a store a call but I didn't. 😎
 
irun5k said:
It might actually be cheaper to buy a phone on eBay now. For example, I just saw a 8 gig go for $625. That is less than you'd pay in most places when you consider sales tax. Plus it includes free shipping. Finally, if you live a ways (say, an hour or more) from an Apple store, you're saving a lot of money on gas.

It is nice to see all these eBay speculators getting their asses handed too them. Considering they paid sales tax, shipping costs, listing fees, and paypal fees, they're losing $$$. It is like all the idiot investors that drove up home prices over the last few years- now they are foreclosing.
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They may not all have paid sales tax -- not all states have it (Delaware and New Hampshire spring to mind, and I'm sure there are others). At $650, eBay fees would come to $26.42, so it is possible that at least some eBay sellers are making a small profit even once shipping is taken into account. Certainly not enough to justify the time they spent, though. If the iPhone actually sold out everywhere and stayed sold out for any significant length of time, they would do well, but Apple clearly has enough inventory that that's not going to happen.
 
I bought my iPhone on Saturday morning at an AT&T store. I called before I went and they told me that as far as they knew they still had some. I went home and activated it. Only took a few minutes. Can't complain.

I would like to see numbers. Sold out means nothing. Selling 500,000 is something impressive.

P6
 
Apple's Quarterly numbers will barely be affected

Actually, Apple's Quarterly numbers will barely be affected. Apple announced not long ago that they wouldn't recongnize iPhone revenue right away. Instead they would treat it like a subscription and recognize it over 8 quarters.


whatever said:
Let's do some quick math. If all of the 1,800 AT&T store got 20 iPhones that would be 36,000 and let's just say they were all the 4GB model (I know that is not true but let's keep this simple), then 36000 x 499 = $17,964,000.00.

Now that's an impressive number for two days of sales, let's cut that number in half and we have $8,982,000.00.

Again, an impressive number. And that's not counting the Apple Stores.

The initial run of iPhones is 3 million units. So if Apple sold just 1/3 of those that's $499,000,000.00.

I can't wait to see this quarter's numbers!
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