It seems that market analysts and pundits can't stop pulling out their anal selves from the woodwork to worry about possible sales discrepancies between Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s iPhone sales numbers and accompanying AT&T, Inc. (NYSE: T) iPhone activations. Some have even pointed out what I call the one million plus unit discrepancy.Is this speculate discrepancy way off the mark? Analyst Ezra Gottheil thinks so. There is some market fear that Apple's iPhone sales not meeting up with AT&T's iPhone activations means that Apple stands to lose out on two years worth of revenue on those "missing iPhones." Apple's sweetheart deal with AT&T gives the tech company a cut of every AT&T iPhone customer's monthly bill, you see.
Does Apple stand to lose future revenue streams by selling iPhones that are not activated by AT&T customers? Sure -- but it's not a huge financial impact to the company according to Gottheil. Although quite a few iPhones have been rumored to have been sold, unlocked (using multiple hacking methods) and used with non-AT&T wireless carriers, these numbers have not been wholly verified by either Apple or AT&T. Has AT&T stockpiled unactivated iPhones that represent Apple's sales numbers and AT&T's lower iPhone activation numbers? That's highly doubtful. Until a solid explanation comes forward, is it that big of a deal to Apple pundits? For the time being, it seems so.










Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-31-2008 @ 3:40PM
joe said...
http://itola.com/technology/missing-iphones-not-that-big-a-deal/
1-31-2008 @ 4:39PM
NewsVisual said...
Brian, I have to say that I think the analyst Ezra Gottheil is right and offering us a more level-headed interpretation than the other analysts. The other analysts became aware a discrepancy in the number of units Apple sold and the number of iPhone subscribers reported by AT&T. They assumed that it was because of wide-spread unlocking activity. NewsVisual reported this variation in numbers last week, but we did not draw a similar conclusion. Why? Well, maybe people were given iPhones as gifts over the holiday, or maybe people were using them as just iPods. We don’t know. But we don’t pretend to know either.
1-31-2008 @ 5:15PM
grandma said...
I gave my children and grandchildren Iphone for Christmas 12 iphones in all. 1 has already activated it and I returned it and the other 10 are waiting for their other contracts to go off, which will happen this month and that is whys they waited!!
1-31-2008 @ 6:00PM
RD said...
You are one of the coolest (and generous) grandmas in the world!