iPhone Outsells the BlackBerry Last Quarter

Apple iPhoneIn what is undoubtedly a sign of the massive impact of the iPhone, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced yesterday during its quarterly conference call that iPhones outsold BlackBerries devices during the last quarter. In their most recent quarter, Research in Motion (RIM) reported selling 6.1 million BlackBerry devices, while Apple just announced sales of 6.9 million iPhones. In roughly the same period, Palm reported overall smartphones sales (Treo and Centro combined) of 1,029,000 units during the quarter.

The numbers are quite staggering considering that Apple has been selling the iPhone for only about 15 months and has already exceeded its own goal of selling 10 million units in 2008. The data adds up to Apple rising to the world's third largest mobile phone supplier measured by revenue.

Steve Jobs remarked, "Measured by revenues, Apple has become the world's third-largest mobile phone supplier. I know this sounds crazy, but it's true - as measured in revenues, not units, Apple has become the third largest mobile phone supplier. Let's look at the ranking - Nokia is clearly number one at 12.7 billion; Samsung number two at 5.9 billion; Apple is number three at 4.6 billion; Sony Ericsson, number four at 4.2; LG, number five at 3.4 billion; Motorola, number six at 3.2; and RIM number seven at 2.1."

AT&T, the sole iPhone carrier in the US, reported that they activated 2.4 million (about a third of Apple's 6.9 million total) iPhones last quarter, including about 40% to customers who were new to AT&T.

Apple has also seen remarkable success with its on device application store. Jobs said that in just over 100 since launch customers have downloaded over 200 million applications. He also stated that there are now over 5,500 applications offered on the App Store in 62 countries around the world.

Via Mac Hash

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Those 'computer guys'.....

twrock @ 10/22/2008 9:32:49 AM # Q
Yep, Apple has hit another home run with the iPhone. It's a crying shame that Palm had all the piece sitting right there in their laps and couldn't figure out how to put it together.


"twrock is infamous around these parts"
(from my profile over at Brighthand due to my negative 62 rep points rating)
RE: Those 'computer guys'.....
hkklife @ 10/22/2008 9:47:22 AM # Q
Palm COULD HAVE figured it out...but due to arrogance/laziness/greed/incompetence, they didn't WANT to be bothered.

It's easier/cheaper to just keep respinning 320x320 + QWERTY in reduced-cost devices in the race to the bottom.

I saw a kid at the mall food court the other day. He must've been 13-14ish. He had an iPod Touch and was holding it up to his ear and pretending to talk on it. I don't know exactly what that signifies but I doubt the Centro will ever have such across the board appeal, despite's Palm's insistence on targeting the "youth" market.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

RE: Those 'computer guys'.....
Gekko @ 10/22/2008 9:59:45 AM # Q

"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." - Bill Gates

"Death can come swiftly to a market leader. By the time you have lost the positive-feedback cycle it's often too late to change what you've been doing, and all of the elements of a negative spiral come into play." - Bill Gates, "The Road Ahead", Chapter 3

"In this business, by the time you realize you're in trouble, it's too late to save yourself. Unless you're running scared all the time, you're gone." - Bill Gates


RE: Those 'computer guys'.....
twrock @ 10/22/2008 10:15:26 AM # Q
You're probably right. I shouldn't have been so "nice" in my wording.

On the hardware side of things, we (and I include myself in that) were begging for that hardware combo long before Apple announced it. Palm had plenty of time to get it together, but chose to just keep making excuses. Nope, no one wants a keyboardless smartphone with a high resolution rectangular screen and wifi capability. We must have been idiots in asking for such a thing.

Plenty of others were telling them how to get the OS in order and even the software delivery system to work for them. Palm was so far out in front at one point that it was hard to believe anyone else had a chance. But it's tech, and we are watching the disaster unfold.

I wish no ill on Apple. They've done a fantastic job in developing a great product and marketing it extremely well. I think I really need to start taking a better look at the iPod Touch (I do not want to be locked into the iPhone's contract or initial price tag). The old TX's battery is getting really weak at this point and I've got to decide whether or not to replace that or go in another direction entirely.


"twrock is infamous around these parts"
(from my profile over at Brighthand due to my negative 62 rep points rating)

RE: Those 'computer guys'.....
hkklife @ 10/22/2008 11:16:21 AM # Q
Well, Palm has almost always left its users wanting just that little "bit" more.


In 1996, the original Pilot lacked a screen backlight. I always wondered why the original Pilot didn't have some kind of 4-way d-pad (for easier navigation as well as gaming capabilities), since Hawkins' older Zoomer had it.

Then Palm was slow to get a color device to market. Then they were lagging everyone else, including another Palm OS licensee (Sony) in bringing multimedia/mp3 capabilities to their devices.

Then they lagged again with wi-fi, with numerous people FIVE years ago criticizing the T3 for not having it.

Then by the time Palm finally got around to getting wi-fi in a large-screen handheld (TX-the LifeDrive disaster does not count), the marketing had begun its shift to smartphones.

That said, there have been a few times when Palm was ahead of the curve technologically:

-Palm V: sleek, ultra-thin, executive status symbol device. Along with the StarTac & the Aeron chair, this is still THE definitive dot-com era status symbol!

-m500 series: Along with being a refinement of the Palm V formfactor, the m500s were early supporters of the SD/MMC platform ( to date still the best combination of capacity, physical size, performance, and affordability) and a main reason SD was able to pull away from Smartmedia & CF while keeping less widespread formats such as xD & Memory Stick from ever gaining traction.

-Tungsten C: Wi-fi, 64mb of RAM, 400mhz CPU and a 1500mAh battery still looks fairly good on paper even today. Imagine how strong that featureset was over 5.5 years ago! A shame Palm ruined the C with mono audio output and a too-chunky size by forcing a thumboard onto it. Marketed properly, this could've been a fantastic poor man's VOIP solution and a cut-down version would have made for a nice Mylo-style device a few years later.

-Tungsten T3: Whether you loved or hated the slider, the T3's large (for its time) screen + 320x480 resolution and snappy performance set the benchmark for modern handheld device performance....despite being released 5 years ago.

-Zire 31: Still the best "bang for the buck" model ever released by Palm. A shame it wasn't marketed propertly or aggressively. By bundling it with an SD card and some decent software (Ptunes, Aeroplayer, TCPMP etc), Palm could've had a poor man's iPod Touch years before Apple gobbled up that market.

Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

RE: Those 'computer guys'.....
freakout @ 10/22/2008 5:57:26 PM # Q
The iPhone's success is in large part due to saturation marketing and Apple's successful re-branding of themselves as a "cool" youth brand. Let's see whether they can hold onto all these new customers when every company has a large-screen media-playing phone out there.

In the meantime, though, they've successfully gone and done everything right that Palm's been doing wrong for the last few years. Mobile app developers especially must be loving it. There was a story in the paper the other day about how some of the more successful developers are raking in upwards of $100,000 daily from the App Store.

Makes you wonder whether any of those devs will even notice when Nova is finally released...

RE: Those 'computer guys'.....
nastebu @ 10/22/2008 7:58:21 PM # Q
freakout, the iphone isn't successful because of marketing. It's successful because it's a really quite excellent phone.

RE: Those 'computer guys'.....
freakout @ 10/23/2008 12:36:44 AM # Q
^^ Mate. If you don't think that wall-to-wall media coverage and the Apple branding had anything to do with the iPhone's success, you're dreaming.
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Possible Nova preview tidbit?

hkklife @ 10/22/2008 11:21:55 AM # Q
This was posted the other day at the official Palm blog by a Palm staffer in response to a reader posting a plea for a TX with a cell phone instead of just new Centro colors:

"Palm has previously announced that there will be a new version of the Palm OS by the end of this year, with devices running that OS in the first half of 2009. Stay tuned!"

Posted by: Jon Zilber | October 20, 2008 at 10:52 AM


Pilot 1000->Pilot 5000->PalmPilot Pro->IIIe->Vx->m505->T|T->T|T2->T|C->T|T3->T|T5->Zodiac 2->TX->Verizon Treo 700P->Verizon Treo 755p

RE: Possible Nova preview tidbit?
BaalthazaaR @ 10/22/2008 4:50:50 PM # Q
Same crap that they've been spouting for a while. Move along nothing to see here.
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The Storm is coming....

leathernuts @ 10/22/2008 12:06:10 PM # Q
Well see what happens when the Storm arrives...... iphone better be coming up with something new.

Poor Palm, how a company just sits and watches, and does nothing is beyond me. Hopefully they have something up their sleeve for next year. Untill then, Im sticking with my BB.

RE: The Storm is coming....
Gekko @ 10/22/2008 1:15:14 PM # Q

"pigeons in a cage".

Reply to this comment

Great for Apple; what about AT&T?

freakout @ 10/22/2008 5:45:49 PM # Q
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24539821-15306,00.html

Boost from iPhone but at a cost: AT&T
Correspondents in New York | October 23, 2008

APPLE'S iPhone is giving its sole US carrier AT&T a big boost in subscribers and buffering the impact of slower landline sales, but the success is coming at a cost that many AT&T investors do not like.

Because AT&T offers subsidies to make the iPhone more affordable in exchange for a commitment to monthly payments, strong sales lift its revenue but hurt profit margins. That weighed on the company's third-quarter results and drove its shares down 4 per cent by midday on Wednesday.

AT&T gained 2 million net new subscribers in the third quarter, in line with the average estimate of five analysts polled by Reuters. Overall revenue rose 4 percent to $US31.3 billion ($46.86 billion), also in line with Wall Street's forecast.

But it cut its forecast for profit margins this year, saying it now expects wireless margin to be "better than 37 per cent," compared with its previous forecast of 39 to 40 per cent.

"It's more dilution than even AT&T figured," Stifel Nicolaus analyst Chris King said, adding that the company may not know for years whether the deal is worth it.

"They'll need to hold on to these customers for at least three years to make it worthwhile."

According to Reuters Estimates, third-quarter profit excluding hurricane-related expenses and amortization costs but including costs related to the iPhone was 69 cents per share, lower than the average analyst forecast of 71 cents.

AT&T also lowered its forecast on full-year, adjusted operating income margin to 23 per cent from a previous outlook of 24 per cent.

Quarterly profit rose to $US3.23 billion, or 55 cents a share, from $US3.06 billion, or 50 cents a share, a year earlier.

The company said its deal with iPhone would prove valuable in the long run. The thinking is that advanced phones help attract new customers, who use their phones more and therefore pay higher bills.

"I know some of you will be concerned with the dilution we experienced this quarter with the new iPhone launch, but I believe our results will bear it out that it is an important investment in our future," chief financial officer Rick Lindner said.

Analyst Todd Rethemeier at Soleil Securities also said the success of the iPhone was good for AT&T in the long run. He kept a "hold" rating on the shares, saying a steady dividend and solid cash flow meant limited risk amid a weak economy.

AT&T, along with No. 2 player Verizon Communications, has been depending on wireless subscribers for growth amid a decline in its traditional wireline customers.

Wireline voice revenue fell over 8 per cent year-on-year, AT&T said. Analysts also noted an acceleration in wireline losses, a trend they have blamed on consumers opting for cheaper services offered by cable providers and internet companies.

Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett said a weak economy may be encouraging more customers to disconnect.

"Our worry has been that wireline telephony is increasingly viewed as a discretionary item," he said. "The easy alternative of 'cutting the cord' or switching to lower-priced cable telephony threaten to make an already bad situation worse."

AT&T has also been banking on growth in high-speed Internet services to stem the rapid decline in wireline customers, but analysts were unimpressed with the quarterly data.

The company said it had 14.8 million wireline broadband subscribers, up just 148,000 over the quarter.

Reuters

RE: Great for Apple; what about AT&T?
abosco @ 10/22/2008 11:14:42 PM # Q
God, stock prices and business analysts are so confusing. Lower profit margins means more volume, more revenue, and more profit overall. But the profit margin is smaller. And that matters because...?

Stupid old tech analysts that don't understand how to be competitive. If you want to sit on your perch and charge a premium for your products for no real reason, you're going to turn out like Palm.

Wall Street is so crooked. They didn't meet "expectations", even though they got millions of new people to sign their life away for years. They only had a 37% profit margin instead of a 39% profit margin. No wonder us engineers look down on business people so much. You're all so full of shit.

End rant.

-Bosco
NX80v + Wifi + BT + S710a

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Wow

CFreymarc @ 10/23/2008 2:21:25 AM # Q
Any idea on how the iPhone is doing in Canada?

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