So statistically speaking APPLE has sold an iPhone to almost 1/12 of the world's population. Even though this number considerable lessens when factoring in multiple sales per person, I find this utterly amazing.
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Apple Quietly Sells Its 500 Millionth iPhone
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Are they really comparing like things? A basic (even with fancy colored plastic) 2190, 5190 , 6190 is not really akin to today's smartphone.
The wikipedia says the top selling mobiles are:
1100, released 2003: 250m - > "The Nokia 1100 is the most basic phone you can get today". MSRP $49.95
1100, released 2005: 250m
3210, released 1999: 160m -> £150. "the greatest phone ever made"
1200, released 2007: 150m -> "There really is no other word to use to describe this mobile than basic'
5230, released 2009: 150m -> $149.95 "The Nokia 5230 Nuron is a low cost smartphone from Nokia"
6600, released 2003: 150m -> £600. At the time of release, it was the most advanced product ever launched by Nokia.
Total: 1.1bn
I'm not sure, if you look at Nokia's stuff, that their billion phones sold are more impressive than the 500m iPhones.
SELECT {
select count(iphones) from apple.sales as cnt1,
select count(iphones) from walmart.sales as cnt2,
select count(iphones) from bestbuy.sales as cnt3
}
A rising tide floats all boats.
The world switched to smartphones, and Apple sold 500 million of them. Good for them.
But like someone else said, Nokia sold a billion phones and continued to report that they were the greatest thing since sliced bread even while they bet the entire business on a) Symbian and b) dumbphones.
They didn't realize that sales volumes are a LAGGING INDICATOR. A tech business can be utterly failing, even as their volumes are high.
Just ask Blackberry. They had incredible sales of the platform for years AFTER they decided to stop evolving. But correlation does not imply causation.
These companies milked their original innovations but never got around to inventing the next big thing. So when someone else did, they went away incredibly quickly.
Apple's innovation was in 2007 and was instantly copied -- and copied very well.
Apple have done nothing but incrementally evolve their very old innovation...and seem to have entirely given up on trying to compete on the hardware side.
Most of you think that that indicates market dominance because sales volumes are high. I disagree.
Apple didn't even start running iPhone 5s magazine ads until Oct. 17 and TV ads until Oct. 20, that's almost a month after the September 20 release date. They sold 9 MILLION iPhones (combined 5s/5c) that first weekend without advertising in magazines or TV.
That's pretty good persuasion. No advertising and those shipping dates kept slipping back...
It's okay if the iPhone is not for you, clearly you were interested enough to read this article since it was an item that's sold 500,000,000!
Is this phone for everyone? Absolutely not. It's also cost prohibitive for many. When I can buy $10 Android phones at the department store with no commitment, a lot of people won't get an iPhone.
The iPhone was a choice for others to make (500,000,000 times), this is NOT a small minority. I'll say 4 of those iPhones were purchased by me, but then the were resold for other people to use them (my 3gs might still be making someone very happy!).
FYI, I've never had a used two year old electronics item sell for such a high price (considering that 3 more recent models [5, 5s, 5c] had come out since it's release), I think that's saying something about people's desire for this device.
I just have to appreciate the scale of this:
A company that sells 500,000,000 of non-consumable products is pretty happy with those kinds of numbers and I'm not even talking electronics. Most of these phones require a two year commitment and on average cost $100 for the base model (not even factoring in the higher memory models). That's much more expensive than normal items. I can't find numbers like this for any particular product line, personal computers sell more than this in 7 years (double or triple, based on estimates) but that's all personal computers across all companies.
Books that sell of 100,000,000 copies are pretty rare and much much cheaper and no other monetary commitment. Movie tickets, DVDs, CDs any of these would be happy with numbers like this. There are only a few hundred albums that have ever gone "Diamond" which is 10,000,000 copies and many of those have been out for decades (290 million copies of Thriller) and many of those were possibly multi-puchases (8-track, cassette, Album, CD) and replacements for tapes that got eaten. (I don't know what kind of number exist
There is only 300 million people in the US and 7 billion in the world. Last year it was estimated there were 6 billion activated cellular phones, which shocked me but than I realized that a portion of these were probably work cell phones too.
500 MILLION is a HUGE number! Congratulations Apple. Thank you Steve Jobs.
Gary
Is there any other company out there that is "innovating" (like how different iOS was compared to BB) or all of them just "add more features" to existing iOS clones? I think there's none.
Me too! But even with multiple sales, I've sold my used phones to others (I didn't throw them out!).
They found a new home and were still in use for a while (if not still!).
I've always been pretty happy with the resale value too
Gary
Why does this article not mention other consumer products that have sold 500 million? So we can put it in historical perspective.
Possibly. I also bought 4 iPhones so if the average is 4, then it drops to 1/50th of the world's population
Why does this article not mention other consumer products that have sold 500 million? So we can put it in historical perspective.
You mean like 10 billion tubes of Crest Tooth paste? 600 million Twinkes? The Snuggie at over 500 million units, or the 12 Microsoft Surface 2's that have sold?
Comedy gold right there. If I could give you 100 thumbs up I would.
On topic: Wow. Surprising they didn't publicly announce it in some way.
Total BS, they'd never have sold 500 million of them if the customers didn't love them. The fad meme ran out of steam a long time ago.
Yeah. Apple should probably be penalized for being the only company to use any form of persuasion to sell their goods and services.
Nothing can replace the feeling of standing in line on that warm summer afternoon, June 29, 2007. I remember holding the thing in my hand for the first time. It was surreal. It really felt like I had found something that a time traveler had accidentally left behind. I remember using it to call my friend for the first time: "I'm calling you from an iPhone HOLY CRAP AAAAAHHHHHAHHAH!" $600 was nothing to own this thing. I would have paid twice as much easilyand I was a college student paying my own way. I didn't even realize it at the time, but the iPhone really helped get me through college. It saved me so many times and I was much better organized.
People laughed when Steve said they wanted 1% of the market. iPhone is a success by any measure. I can't wait to see what is after iPhone. I bet their labs are full of some crazy stuff!
People laughed when Steve said they wanted 1% of the market. iPhone is a success by any measure. I can't wait to see what is after iPhone. I bet their labs are full of some crazy stuff!
You bet I am.
It's like being on an airplane that's taking off from a valley bottom.
There are two rates of climb to consider.
The fact that your elevation above sea level is rapidly increasing is not necessarily proof that you are going to survive even the next 60 seconds.
Even if you congratulate yourself on your apparently excellent rate of ascent, you need to consider the first comic in this image:
http://www.funnyjunk.com/funny_pictures/1648199/Farside
Bear in mind that the nine million included sales to retailers and carriers around the world.
They didn't need advertising to kick start their inventory purchases.
The ever expanding number of retailers is part of why the first weekend sales are expected to rise each year.
