Apple 'Blown Away' by iPhone 5 Pre-Orders

[KrakaJap]

It's just PR. Sold out of how many tho? Weren't the displays from Sharp delayed thereby causing the inventory to be smaller? The plot thickens.

That and the fact that it's incredibly easy to upgrade free from an equal or almost equal resell of last year's model. So the real questions are: 1. How many are "new" sales/activations? and 2. How many sold their old phones? There are quite a few variables to consider here than just a flat sell out number.

 

[subsonix]

This nonsense from Apple about underestimating initial demand for products is REAL tiresome.

Except that it's followed by real numbers after the fact.

 

[87am]

I can guarantee that press release was drafted last week.

 

[bobob]

The fact that it was sold out in an hour just means supply was less than demand. If they had 2 and got orders for 3, it would be sold out. It has nothing to do with record-breaking sales figures, yet at least. The initial supply just might have mean a lot less this year. This is no information until they quote actual pre-order unit sales.

For all we know, Apple might have just held back supply to purposely say they were sold out in hour for publicity. I'm not saying that's the case, but it's possible.

Apple has continuously improved their supply chain management with Tim Cook's madskilz in that area - - they sold 37 million iPhones in the last 3 months of 2011 after the iPhone 4S launch.

They are one of the few company's that truly takes advantage of the excitement of a product launch and makes sure that plenty are available to strike while the iron's hot.

 

[Disorderly]

for those lining up, this may be worse than the iphone 4 launch. They had some crazy 4 hour lines.

4 hours? Took me 8.5 hours to get through the line at my local mall. Glad the preorder worked for me.

 

[CristobalHuet]

I can guarantee that press release was drafted last week.

Why? Probably was thrown together an hour ago. It's a sentence boasting "omfg we're awesome". Not hard to do.

 

[SevenOfNine]

"Blown Away"

Interesting hyperbole. Apple seems to be blown away all the time

 

[lockerc18]

What's REAL tiresome is people like you pretending to know what marketing means.

Really? Saying that without knowing my background at all? I happen to have been in large corporate marketing for more years than you've probably been alive, sailor.

 

[cardinalryan]

I'm blown away by how stupid some people on this board really are!

What did you think Apple would say?

"We are very upset over preorder sales, we really were expected to sell at least 60% more units than what were actually ordered."

Of course they sold out, it's a popular product and nobody is denying that, but this is classic Nintendo Wii marketing...produce less, sell out, create a huge buzz because you are in short supply.

It's smart marketing...Apple is very good at this.

 

[Geckotek]

Based on past records, don't you think Apple would've anticipated a blow out and increased their supply this time around? I would think so

There were reports of issues with the Sharp displays. Who knows. But all these conspiracy nuts that think Apple would hold back stock instead of booking as many sales on the first day that they could are absolute idiots and clearly know nothing about sales.

 

[TheBuffather]

Bet this is why when we ordered last night there was no option for store pickup.

I had an option for store pickup...

 

[YesILoveTech]

'Blown Away'...interesting choice of words considering all the sucking and swallowing going on in these forums. I hope you guys love and defend your loved ones the same way you do your iPhones.

 

[CFreymarc]

Apple is doomed.

Put your money where your mouth is and short their stock or ****!

 

[OtherJesus]

I just took a massive samsung.

 

[Geckotek]

but this is classic Nintendo Wii marketing...produce less, sell out, create a huge buzz because you are in short supply.

It's smart marketing...Apple is very good at this.

Wrong, produce less, sell out of less, means showing less impressive numbers to investors and stockholders of first day sales. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

 

[Ubele]

If the iPhone 5 is selling this well, imagine how much better it would be selling if it weren't a lame epic fail with no innovative wow factor. Shipping estimates probably would be up to seven or eight months by now.

After participating in the launch-week feeding frenzy for the iPad 2 last year and coming away empty-handed, I swore "Never again." I plan to buy an iPhone 5, but I'm content to wait. When shipping estimates for the iPhone 4 were still at three weeks, I took a chance and called an AT&T store. Several iPhone 4's had just come in. They put one on hold for me, and I picked it up after work. I'm hoping the same will happen with the 5.

 

[turtlez]

I'm blown away by how stupid some people on this board really are!

What did you think Apple would say?

"We are very upset over preorder sales, we really were expected to sell at least 60% more units than what were actually ordered."

Of course they sold out, it's a popular product and nobody is denying that, but this is classic Nintendo Wii marketing...produce less, sell out, create a huge buzz because you are in short supply.

It's smart marketing...Apple is very good at this.

they sold out their first shipment in a couple of hours.

 

[CristobalHuet]

Really? Saying that without knowing my background at all? I happen to have been in large corporate marketing for more years than you've probably been alive, sailor.

Then don't act like you haven't. Apple isn't holding back supply to generate foolhardy demand, that's just asinine.

 

[KnightWRX]

Why? Probably was thrown together an hour ago. It's a sentence boasting "omfg we're awesome". Not hard to do.

The poster refers to the fact that it's the same thing every year. "We didn't anticipate such demand!". Somehow, I could have told you this would be the case yesterday.

 

[Geckotek]

I can guarantee that press release was drafted last week.

That I can believe.

 

[iJon]

If the iPhone 5 is selling this well, imagine how much better it would be selling if it weren't a lame epic fail with no innovative wow factor. Shipping estimates probably would be up to seven or eight months by now.

After participating in the launch-week feeding frenzy for the iPad 2 last year and coming away empty-handed, I swore "Never again." I plan to buy an iPhone 5, but I'm content to wait. When shipping estimates for the iPhone 4 were still at three weeks, I took a chance and called an AT&T store. Several iPhone 4's had just come in. They put one on hold for me, and I picked it up after work. I'm hoping the same will happen with the 5.

I think you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[CristobalHuet]

Put your money where your mouth is and short their stock or ****!

Sensitive much? I was being sarcastic, thought that much was obvious.

 

[jonnysods]

I just ordered mine now and I hope it takes a while to get here. If it takes more than 2 weeks after the launch Rogers will give me a $50 credit. That will help pay for some of my ETF.

 

[Eddyisgreat]

That and the fact that it's incredibly easy to upgrade free from an equal or almost equal resell of last year's model. So the real questions are: 1. How many are "new" sales/activations? and 2. How many sold their old phones? There are quite a few variables to consider here than just a flat sell out number.

? Who cares. The number sold means that people for whatever reason stayed up that night or got up this morning and placed their order. It doesn't matter if they already had an iPhone, had an android, are white, black, asian, male , female, christian, tall short etc.

That's like saying if your platform already has 80% of the market, and 100% of those folks upgrade to the latest model, but it fails to capture 2% of the uncaptured market, then it's a failure. It would be a failure if NO ONE bought it.

 

[tigress666]

^ can you please that? No reason for it to be so huge.

My impression was that this was the smoothest online launch, so the quick sell out isn't a surprise.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, every year you usually get a thread about how there was a ton of messup and the servers went down and people had a hard time ordering... I was surprised at 12 when I got in, made an order, and everything went like it should...

I wonder if some of it selling out so quickly was that things were working smoothly and people were able to get in and buy and therefore they were able to sell at a faster pace rather than having several people locked up cause the servers couldn't handle it.