150 iPhones per minute
During their quarterly conference call Apple stated they sold 270,000 iPhones in the first 30 hours. That’s somewhere between $75,000 to $90,000 each minute. Apple’s stock punched through $150 after hours and was still trading over $148 when I published this.
The day prior, AT&T claimed activation of 146,000 iPhones over the first two days. That figure seemed very low and the news duly tanked Apple’s stock.
Another way of reading those numbers is that AT&T botched 124,000 activations. Considering my own iPhone activation experience and that of many friends, this seems very possible. Thankfully things have been flawless since.
I feel somewhat vindicated now. My wife’s uncle was seriously contemplating purchasing Apple stock, simply based on the iPhone buzz surrounding the launch weekend. I advised him against it for the mere reason that Apple stock is now permanently welded to that of AT&T Wireless’ performance. The fact that they activated only 60% of what was sold is a signal of something bad.
Apparently you can only charge the battery about 300 times before having to PAY THEM to professionally replace it. My own cell phone is now 3 years old, and I have not yet had to replace either it or the battery (phew).
http://blogs.business2.com/apple/2007/07/iphone-class-ac.html
Pat, even if your wife’s uncle had bought AAPL at the worst possible time in the month before the iPhone launch ($125.09 on June 18), he’d have still cleared a solid 15% return as of today, even with the markets currently in freefall. Had he bought at the best possible time ($117.50 on June 13), he would have realized a 22% return as of today.
About the battery. Well that class action suit pissed me off enough that I’m responding as a full post: iPhone battery nonsense, round 2
Yes Joe, I should have done some googling myself. These kinds of lawsuits piss me off too.
FWIW, like I said, my cell phone (my first) has lasted 3 years now. Does the battery perform “as well” as it did 3 years ago? No. Only one time did I notice a significant drop in performance (and that was just for one day. I can not imagine that Apple would ship a product with a battery technology that could doom its reputation.
I think Apple is a fantastic company (as far as stock goes) but I do not like the volatility that goes with things like a partnership like the one with AT&T