iPhone 3G: Now serving 660 million potential customers
A real queue: NYC two weeks after launch
Queues — some real, some made for hire — formed outside cellphone stores in 21 countries Friday as Apple executed the second major overseas roll-out of the iPhone 3G.
The scale of Friday's operation, which reached from India and Singapore to Colombia and Argentina, was almost lost in the news that some of the eager "customers" lining up in Warsaw were actors paid by the mobile carrier Orange to hide the fact that demand for the iPhone is considerably weaker overseas than it was in the U.S. (link)
How important was the launch? According to a report to clients issued Friday by Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, Apple (AAPL) enlarged the iPhone's potential market 78% in one swoop — a fact he says has not been factored into the company's share price.
After the 7/11 launch, the iPhone 3G was available in 22 countries with, by Munster's calculation, a combined cellphone subscriber base of 370.5 million customers.
The 21 countries Apple added on Friday boast a total cellphone subscriber base of of 290 million, increasing the iPhone's reach to 43 countries and 660.5 million potential customers.
Earlier Friday, several news outlets reported that three Russian carriers, with 144 million subscribers, have agreed to sell the iPhone this year, perhaps as early as October.
Of course, nobody knows how many of those potential subscribers will actually buy iPhones. Apple's only publicly stated goal is that it hopes to capture 1% of the worldwide market in calendar year 2008, which would require selling 10 million iPhones by December 31. Many analysts believe Apple may sell that many before the end of September.
"We believe shares of AAPL will trade on iPhone unit volumes for the next several quarters," Munster wrote, "so we expect the iPhone unit upside to be a positive catalyst for the stock."
Below: Munster's list of the 21 countries where the iPhone began selling on Friday, with their subscriber base.
By the way don't forget the "Reverse Polish Notation" from Polish mathematician that is now used to "… reduce computer memory access and utilize the stack to evaluate expressions."(wikipedia)
Don't forget that India was and is more developed intellectually than most of the so called "developed" countries. Don't forget that without "zero" from India, there the so called developed countries will be still in dark ages with no cell phones that depend on zero's and one's!!!
wow a potntial 105 million people in india and the sell it for 708$for 8gb model….where is the math…where is the logic??!! i really wanted 1 till i heard the prices…
I have read several comments from India natives that many of their fellow country wo/men would easily spend half a year's salary on an iPhone and it doesn't surprise me at all, it actually makes sense.
Cellphones to Indians are like cars to Americans:
- like Americans overhaul their cars, Indians spend lots of money on cellphones. They most certainly can buy iPhones on credit like Americans buy their cars…
- it's a status symbol, it gets them chicks (quote)
- Indians usually don't have cars and many live with their family paying little to no rent. Their expenditure on food and clothes can be quite low too. So what else to spend one's money on, knowing that there is almost no fixed line infrastructure and distances are huge?!
It is deceiving – not to mention arrogant – to say that developing countries are poor, they simply have a different system to live by. People don't pay $3500/month for a straitjacket flat in the city, most have little expenses and save most of their hard earned money – those seemingly poor people actually have the money to spend on an iPhone. They have proven it before by buying Nokia's most expensive models in droves.
Similarly it is equally deceiving to say that they wouldn't be interested in buying devices like the iPhone because it is too expensive or sophisticated. Again that's the arrogant burgerhead view of the world – people want that sophistication because all they care about is to move up the scale!
Not that I'm saying that's what is written in here but I hear this a lot.
It is precisely the fact that those are developing countries that tells me that devices such as the iPhone and Apple's soon to follow Touch products (MacBook Touch tablet?) will likely be more coveted than in many so called "developed" countries – those people are far more thirsty of "developing tools" than others that are accustomed to live in abundance and many times are just looking for yet one more gadget to play with.
Mind you, I'm not even talking about the new HUGE class of affluent people.
And that the iPhone is a status symbol – did I say that already?!
So what are you and your bosses at Microsoft going to do, Philip? No matter how much anti-Apple propaganda you generate all over the internet, Apple keeps growing. Hiring Gerry Seinfeld won't help. Apple's going to win that battle easily.
I think they do the hired queues everywhere in the world. But there are no morons like Orange Poland's press officer who would admit this!
Buzz marketing should be done properly. There is nothing wrong with it unless you do it correctly. Poor products or poor services will die anyway. Buzz marketing helps get over media clutter.
I use LifeInPocket with my Motorola V3xx. I pay very small monthly fee to AT&T & it can do more than my friends' iPhone.
I download it from http://lifeinpocket.com/ and used it for 6 months. I never receive any unwanted message from them.
You could have clarified that the "for hire" queues weren't Apple's idea, but rather that of the Polish company selling the iPhones.
But that wouldn't give as much of a negative connotation, now would it….
Even in US there are only 10% or less are buying smart phones which normally charge less monthly fee than iPhone.
In addition, I have seen a lot of people using LifeInPocket app and services with their "regular phones" which gives the look and power of iPhone plus navigation, location IM, sync. thus in many cases more useful than iPhone and it's free.
I have not seen other apps like that while there are probably more. Those are the ones will have this 660.5 million market.
Most of the countries mentioned, although mostly poor, have large and growing upper class populations as well, that can easily afford iPhone's. Collectively, millions are able to afford the phone. And whether they default on their contract down the road or not, Apple gets paid up front.
I'm sure in Eastern Europe kiosk owners give away Fortune! for use as birdcage paper… if it helps inflate the numbers, and maybe leads to sales.. well – so?
What leads wannabe "journalists" to mindlessly repeat that a bunch of people in costume with masks are meant to fool people into thinking they are customers waiting in line? A legitimate print jurnalist wants to know.