Apple falls on initial iPhone activation numbers
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Tue, 24 Jul 2007 14:07:25 GMT |
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of Apple Inc fell 4 percent on Tuesday after AT&T Inc issued initial subscriber numbers for customers of Apple's iPhone that were below analyst estimates.Shares of Apple were off $5.70 to $138.02 on Nasdaq after AT&T, the exclusive service provider for iPhone, said it signed up 146,000 iPhone customers as subscribers in the first two days of iPhone sales, well below analyst estimates for sales.Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves said that while iPhone sales figures for coming months would be more telling than the first few days, AT&T's number had disappointed investors as some analysts estimated sales "north of 500,000."Hargreaves had himself estimated 400,000 iPhone sales for the first two days, he said."The difference (between sales and activations) is going to be what was sold on eBay or activations that didn't happen immediately. There were some problems with activations but from what we heard it was minimal," the analyst said.Apple and AT&T had attracted long lines of gadget enthusiasts to their stores when the much-hyped iPhone first went on sale in the evening of June 29.
(c) Reuters 2007. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
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Fashion Is Ephemeral
By:
Sean ,
Wed, 25 Jul 2007 04:21:03 GMT
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It's not that the iPhone isn't a nice "consumer electronics" product. It's that fashion is ephemeral. There's only so much Beck-inspired music video silhouettes can do to mark up products. Ultimately, when everyone has something, it's no longer cool, or exclusive. The iPod ubiquitous and so who needs an iPhone, or an iTampon for that matter?
Once everyone has something, it's hard to say it's cool/chic/exclusive.
The clear problem here is that 50% of Apple's market capitalization right now appears to be tied to this iPhone because it seeks to "tap" such a large market as compared with Apple's previous products. If the iPhone doesn't provide the cachet of slim urban loners dancing in silhouette -- if people don't feel that this cellular telephone is going to make them skinny, urban chic street dancers, then that 50% premium is going to evaporate rather quickly.
Jobs' awkward and arrogant presentations are a sign of just how un-hip Apple is becoming (e.g., "we don't need a stylus, we're going to use something that we've been using for 10,000 years, you have ten of them, one may be stuck in your butt right now, yes that's right, your FINGERS!" He's become a geek who thinks he's chic.
But only time will tell if the iPhone can match the ephemeral and magical illusion of "hip" being attached to a shell of plastic with electronics inside. How this turns out will say more about the public mind than about Apple.
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