01/24/2008, 4:05am, EST
Thursday, January 24th
Apple lowers iPhone projections for March quarter?
Apple has reportedly lowered its projected shipments of iPhones for the March quarter. According to a new report, the company has lowered its orders from two million units to around 1-1.2 million units for the second fiscal quarter, which ends in March. Despite announcing that it has sold over four million iPhones to date, Apple may be suffering from decreased demand in some parts of world, according to new report by the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN). Quoting sources at Apple's handset component suppliers in Taiwan, the Digitimes indicates that Apple has reduced orders for its popular mobile device due to decreased demand in Europe. The company launched the mobile device in UK, Germany, and France last Fall, but one report this week indicated that the company's sales in the UK have been below the company's expectations.
In its conference call earlier this week, Apple noted shipments of 2.3 million iPhones in the December quarter, thus indicating that Apple had shipped almost 300,000 iPhones during the first two weeks of January and representing a quarterly rate of about 1.8 million units. However, on the call, Apple executives were confident that Apple would hit its sales target of 10 million iPhones for calendar year 2008.
The EDN report speculates that sales of iPhones in Europe have been lower than expected thus leading Apple to cut its shipment projections for the second quarter. Despite Apple's strong quarter and its optimism in its product line-up, Apple's stock dropped precipitously due to a weaker-than-expected outlook for the March quarter -- some analysts, however, see the drop as a buying opportunity.
Earlier this week, separate reports indicated that cellular carrier Optus is trying to negotiate exclusive rights to Apple's iPhone in Australia and that Apple is currently negotiating international distribution rights for its iPhone in Thailand.
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Anyway, the point of this post- over time, Apple may going to sell as many of these as other companies would of their smart phones. Why? Their business model, of course. Let's not forget that as we've seen after last Macworld, you don't have to buy new hardware to get the benefits of updated software- and it's free! Other companies require a new phone to get upgrades like these, but with OS X in these things, GUI changes- even drastic ones- are easy to pull off.
Aside from improved wireless networking or a more reasonable amount of space for those wanting the iPhone to replace their old iPod, there isn't much Apple could do on the hardware end to justify replacements.
But the device hasn't been out for even a year yet. There's a lot that can happen still.
At $399, iPhone is a lot less expensive than most of the Nokia phones I used to buy Bi (Before iPhone), and it works significantly better at what it does. Most of all, Apple keeps improving iPhone with software updates, adding functions and features - while with Nokia, to get new features, I had to buy a new handset (even of the new feature was just a new browser, or the ability to upload my pictures). With iPhone, my original investment is being protected, through free updates from Apple for the first 2 years-though most likely these kind of updates may be free as long as you remain under contract (i.e. as long as Apple receives part of your phone fees).
Tip of the week: buy a Mac, iPhone and 2 iPods together with some juicy underpriced Apple stock!
This policy seems to extend to Apple's computers too, AFAIK they generally sell for the same amount of € as they do $ here in US.
BTW wish your Mac a happy birthday today!