How Apple Ships Millions of iPhones for Simultaneous Delivery

[HappyInCalgary]

Profit margins go to hell; stock sinks!

What was Apple thinking? Only 549 for a new iPhone? Why not just give them away? They did this with the Macbook Air and now the iPhone. What about the profit margins? Apple, you are THE premier profit maker, not a cheap Android phone maker. Act like one!
I apologize for my rant, but somebody's got to think about Apple!
/snark

BTW, I do think they will do very well.

 

[testcard]

I would gather apple has a blanket policy for this.

AppleCare+?

 

[nikhsub1]

uh grab a calculator its more like $2

Uhh, $242,000 / 450,000 = .537

 

[158273]

Any snafu can mean lost sales or increased costs.

Snafu is a word?!

 

[Tiger8]

It's such an honour. You have no idea how much this mean to me.

I wish iPhone 5c is a ripoff, it's more of: last year technology in a cheaper plastic package, cheaper to make, still overpriced though.

 

[Gus Van Der Mee]

I wish iPhone 5c is a ripoff, it's more of: last year technology in a cheaper plastic package, cheaper to make, still overpriced though.

Ergo rip off I bet it's higher margin than 5S.

 

[Tobias Funke]

If they are so good at shipping iPhones?!

How come it took 2/3 months last year before apple stores had them IN STOCK!

And not on the lottery/reserve system ?!

 

[ValSalva]

450,000 phones, assuming they are all base model 5C (unlikely) at a US retail price (off contract) at $549, that is $247,050,000 in product, nearly a quarter billion dollars. Crazy.

That's amazing. Wonder what the insurance is for that flight. No way that much retail value could be on one plane without insurance.

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Snafu is a word?!

It's a military abbreviation. Kind of like Fubar. Look it up

 

[billnye97]

I am shocked to find out that Apple uses airplanes for transport.

What will they tell me next, that water is in fact wet?

 

[CFreymarc]

2 bucks an iphone is not to bad at all. I mean that is warp speed transport.

My thoughts exactly. This is a perfect example of how shipping in large volumes all at once amounts to big savings. This is about 2% of the cost of shipping such a unit individually.

How much you want to bet that Samsung and other Android phones ship via cargo crates on shipping boats into Port of Oakland?

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That's amazing. Wonder what the insurance is for that flight. No way that much retail value could be on one plane without insurance.

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It's a military abbreviation. Kind of like Fubar. Look it up

I am sure there is a logistics underwriter in the deal. Love to know the insurance premium paid for flights like this.

 

[bradl]

As an aviation aficionado - love the Boeing 777. My favorite airliner. Beautiful, quiet, and efficient.

A beautiful plane to deliver beautiful products

Maybe the new 777 do but the older fleet lands in Anchorage, Alaska.

Depends. Their DC10s, MD10s, and MD11s won't have the distance, so if they are being used (more than likely not, as those are being phased out from that route), they would land at PANC. Their A306s wouldn't be used there, either. But FDX is going heavy on the B777-ERF and LRF models, so they could skip PANC altogether. Keep in mind that from VHHH, they would be traveling with the wind, so they could skip it. On the opposite route, they'd need to stop.

Now, consider this.. we're lucky that FDX is using B777s for us in the US. Imagine having your phone onboard a 50 - 60 year old Ilyushin, Tupolev, or Yak. I cringe when I see those sometimes, as I wonder when they are truly going to fall apart. At least they do keep up on some of their Antonovs.

BL.

 

[jyen]

nevermind I better get a calculator myself

There's an app for that.

 

[nezr]

Too slow...they need to teleport that ****

 

[spazzcat]

"Bloomberg examined how Apple manages such a rollout and the logistical operation it uses to get the phones where they need to be."

Just don't rely on USPS for delivering your packages on time.

USPS is days faster then FEDEX smartpost...

 

[iPadPublisher]

Cool look at the inside... always wondered how this worked on the bit-for-bit level.

The makings of a good heist movie? "The Phone Plane" ?

 

[Richdmoore]

I work in the transportation field, and one concern has been the shipping of Lithium batteries. The batteries have either started or exacerbated on board fires in several aircraft, and resulted in some deaths to the flight crew.

I don't know of any fires due to batteries installed in devices such as cell phones, instead I believe (to the best of my memory) the incidents so far has involved shipping batteries not installed in electronics.

That all being said, I wonder how many pounds of batteries are on each flight, and if there are precautions taken to lessens the chance of onboard fires with the large volumes of iPhones on each aircraft?

I posed the second article showing that some fire suppression for the batteries was in development, but I am unable to determine if they are actually have been deployed fleet wide.

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-n...ge-lithium-batteries-suspected-some-accidents

http://venturaaerospace.com/news/suppressing-lithium-ion-battery-fires/

 

[RyanKohl]

So if we order the 5S at 12AM Friday 20th, can we get next day shipping and get it Saturday?

 

[PBG4 Dude]

It's a military abbreviation. Kind of like Fubar. Look it up

Oddly enough, Snafu was a Colecovision game as well. I remember playing it back in my younger days.

 

[tongxinshe]

So the iPhone only costs about 54¢ to ship from China to the U.S.? Not bad.

No, the shipping cost from the airport to the store or to your house are much higher than that.

 

[KdParker]

great story...if I really wanted an iPhone 5C.

 

[trims]

As an aviation aficionado - love the Boeing 777. My favorite airliner. Beautiful, quiet, and efficient.

A beautiful plane to deliver beautiful products

Quiet!? You clearly haven't had the misfortune to fly in the cheap seats near the back of one of these planes!

 

[KdParker]

So if we order the 5S at 12AM Friday 20th, can we get next day shipping and get it Saturday?

Doubt that...more like if you CAN order on the 20th, what will the wait time be...1 to 2 weeks or 1 to 2 months.

 

[lostngone]

Quiet!? You clearly haven't had the misfortune to fly in the cheap seats near the back of one of these planes!

Have you ever flown in the back of an early model 727-100?

 

[BJMRamage]

USPS is days faster then FEDEX smartpost...

But isn't FedEx Smartpost where FedEx takes the package from the source to the local US Post Office and then the USPS takes the final delivery?

I hate seeing FedEx get a shipment 3 miles away and then see the USPS say it could take 3-5 days from that point.

Though I get it, FedEx has nice local hubs everywhere and the USPS doesn't extend too much in transport costs...it just irks me as an end user.

 

[macus3r]

you folks are coming up with the value of iphones per flight using the street retail price and not their manufacturing cost, which is what the value should be.

apple is purchasing assembled phones from foxconn and probably paying for a unique team of logistics and security partners to arrange the transit ex-factory to destination, combining the assets described in the story. the ownership risk lies with apple here as foxconn probably has nothing to do with the product's movement. as far as insurance goes, i am sure apple's got the world's best commercial and transportation insurance you can possibly imagine.