Apple Quietly Sells Its 500 Millionth iPhone

[penplotter]

I find it hilarious how people "sign off" at the end of a comment using their usernames... as if they're ending an important business email. You don't need to "sign off" and tell us your username, and plus - it just looks silly, because people's usernames are often humourous and silly, so they're using a light-hearted username in an overly-serious context - we can see your username at the side; it's no less silly sounding if you sign off with it

It also smacks of self-importance, mildly...


Bye for now,

penplotter, plotter of pens.

 

[MattInOz]

or $10,000

Maybe they did!
Maybe it was in the box, inside the info sleave with the sim pin.
It's either sitting on stock self somewhere.
Or the person who brought it had the sim put in in the store so never opened the packet and found it there instead of the apples stickers.

Or it just never existed.

 

[santaliqueur]

How can someone sell 500 million phones "quietly"?

The title means that the 500 millionth phone was sold quietly, without any fanfare from Apple. Not that they sold 500 million phones quietly.

You already knew that though.

 

[penplotter]

The title means that the 500 millionth phone was sold quietly, without any fanfare from Apple. Not that they sold 500 million phones quietly.

You already knew that though.

People generally know, they just like to fuss and to make a big showboat on forums to draw attention. I admire Apple massively, and good for them

 

[igazza]

Great news. If they make 2 iPhone 6 models they will get to 1 billion

 

[penplotter]

Great news. If they make 2 iPhone 6 models they will get to 1 billion

Only one billion?

 

[laurim]

Your list of owned hardware says more about your ability to choose items unaffected by branding than anything you could ever say

What it says is, I know a great company to spend my money on (AND, I own my own multimedia business so need multiple computers). BTW- I've used plenty of non-Apple tech products in my 50 years on Earth so I know full well why I choose Apple when it counts (i.e. to make money).

 

[Constable Odo]

Which analyst will be first to use this information to predict Apple's imminent DEATH ??

Wall Street investors are always saying iPhone sales are coming up short every quarter, so I'm sure Apple should have sold at least 750 million. Apparently, Apple is not trying hard enough to sell iPhones. Maybe if Apple hadn't let Google's Android and Samsung slap them in the face in 2012, things would have been a lot different. Apple has totally lost the news media, computer industry's and Wall Street's respect because of the iPhone's consistent loss of smartphone market share. I'm certain Wall Street sees this loss as Apple's imminent DEATH or DOOM. Wall Street doesn't see Apple's glass as half-full. It's seen as half-empty and draining liquid at a rapid pace and will soon be an empty glass.

/s

 

[dragje]

Impressive, can't state otherwise.


Grats Apple!

 

[penplotter]

This is grate, Apple!

 

[HenryDJP]

Apple should give the person who bought it a $500 iTunes gift card.

That's excessive and really not necessary.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Why? Balmer is no longer the CEO of MS. He's enjoying a very wealthy lifestyle on the board of directors with very little interaction with the marketing or development.

Got an iPhone, Mac and iPad myself but it sounds like somebody has a bad case of bias.

Well, he was one of the most vocal doubters in the early iPhone days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

 

[iSayuSay]

Maybe they did!
Maybe it was in the box, inside the info sleave with the sim pin.
It's either sitting on stock self somewhere.
Or the person who brought it had the sim put in in the store so never opened the packet and found it there instead of the apples stickers.

Or it just never existed.

Question is, how do you decide which iPhone is the 500 millionth unit to be sold? Someone out there could just buy an iPhone at the very same second you buy it.

In which case, who's the 500 millionth buyer?

 

[penplotter]

Question is, how do you decide which iPhone is the 500 millionth unit to be sold? Someone out there could just buy an iPhone at the very same second you buy it.

In which case, who's the 500 millionth buyer?

It's likely based upon activation data from iTunes/iCloud etc

 

[MattInOz]

Question is, how do you decide which iPhone is the 500 millionth unit to be sold? Someone out there could just buy an iPhone at the very same second you buy it.

In which case, who's the 500 millionth buyer?

Don't the refurb and replacement phones come in brown cardboard boxes?
So it could be in the 500 millionth phone boxed for sale, but it would have been sold out of order.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Question is, how do you decide which iPhone is the 500 millionth unit to be sold? Someone out there could just buy an iPhone at the very same second you buy it.

In which case, who's the 500 millionth buyer?

They will never know who was the 500 millionth buyer.

Apple is selling over 500,000 iPhones every day.

At any given second of that day... there are 5 iPhones being purchased at the very same moment across the globe.

Apple should be able to know when the 500 millionth iPhone checked into their activation server... but that's not the same as the 500 millionth buyer.

 

[7thson]

That's excessive and really not necessary.

Not a fan of generosity I take it?

 

[furi0usbee]

Apple should give the person who bought it a $500 iTunes gift card.

They could afford a $5m or $50m gift card.... but then who wants to pay the taxes on that.... I'd rather lose.

 

[penplotter]

Not a fan of generosity I take it?

It seems not. I think it's nice of them to do this, and also gives them great publicity; I'd say it's actually up to Apple who they give their kind gifts to, not some random person on t'internet...

 

[HenryDJP]

Not a fan of generosity I take it?

Just not of fan of the continuing sense of entitlement of some people here.

 

[penplotter]

Just not of fan of the continuing sense of entitlement of some people here.

If something bothers you and annoys you, why would you keep raking over it in your head, consuming "mind time"?

If you ate something which gave you a stomach upset, would you keep going back for MORE?

Focus on one's own faults - I find it's helpful for a stress-free life

 

[AstronomyiPhone]

Why? Balmer is no longer the CEO of MS. He's enjoying a very wealthy lifestyle on the board of directors with very little interaction with the marketing or development.

Got an iPhone, Mac and iPad myself but it sounds like somebody has a bad case of bias.

I believe he had a few choice comments about the iPhone...

which turned out to be wrong.

 

[penplotter]

I believe he had a few choice comments about the iPhone...

which turned out to be wrong.

Coming from the ex-CEO of a company who decided this:

... bore relevance to music, I can't say his opinion mattered too much.

 

[garylapointe]

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.

The Sept. 20 date was for US, Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Singapore, and the UK. It wasn't until a few weeks later that a lot of smaller regional carriers in US/Canada got them and between Oct. 25th and Nov. 1st there were 51 more countries added.

I'm okay if it's world-wide or store pre-orders, my point was they couldn't keep these stocked very well and for the first four weeks they hadn't started advertising on TV or magazines (the 5c did get advertising earlier). That 9,000,000 was just the first weekend...

It took a month until supplies started to get better, so I can't imaging many of the 5s were sitting around (the 5c I'm not so sure).

Saw a new number of 55,300,000 for 2013 holiday quarter with a nice graph of quarterly sales since the 2007 release. https://www.macrumors.com/2014/01/20/analysts-record-55-million-iphones/

Gary

 

[kalsta]

wow !! 500 million!
and 7 years ago Steve had an ambition only to get 10% of the 100 million smartphones user, back in the day.

When Steve announced the iPhone, he said they were aiming to sell 10 million by the end of 2008, representing one percent of the global handset market, which I believe they achieved at the time. I'm sure he had much bigger ambitions beyond that though, which would have seemed too unrealistic to mention at the time.