Apple weekend iPhone 5 sales miss forecasts

Whoops - I meant "picking their's up"

/shame

Better title

"Apple weekend iPhone 5 sales misses ONE hopeless analyst's forecast"

What do analysts really know anyway - Apple do not give them any 'special' access to information so it's their guesses. My 'guess' is people can't be ar$ed queueing and they are generally more available - 5m is still a bucket load of phones to shift in a weekend.

The number of iOS updates in a weekend is more telling - remember all these new iPhone 5's shipped with iOS 6 so the 100m is based on actual phones in use and just the first few days. There is no real reason to 'upgade' a single phone so in reality that number is huge and relative to the actual number of phones in use.

I have quite a few friends with various iPhone handsets - many are not at the end of their contracts or wanted to avoid any initial iOS 6 and new hardware 'bugs' so are holding off a few weeks. End of the day it's in Apples interest for them to be more available - sold old may make a few people think 'oh it must be good' but will make many others buy something else - there is a lot of instant purchases.

Quite a lot of places are sold out. Vodafone online have 64Gb in white (in stock) but all other models 3-4 weeks.

Would not be surprised if 5m was all the initial iPhone 5 stock - there were reports of slight delays getting the screens done quick enough. First quarter sales / 6 month sales will be more telling.

Riot

But then their production will be slowed down a bit:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/production-halted-at-foxconn-plant-that-supplies-apple-as-2000-workers-clash-with-security-guards-in-four-hour-riot-8167426.html

supply constraints spin

surely. It's so popular, we sold out of our initial stock, spin blah blah blah.

Not the reality of course, many consumers have woken up to the fact that fruity devices are overpriced and under-spec these days compared to flasgship Android handsets.

Phoned Orange this morning to sort out one of our phones and they actually had "we're receiving lots of calls regarding the new iPhone 5, which is available blah blah..." as their bloody hold message. I double-checked and yep, I had dialled support, not sales.

Is it broken or something, or are Orange just a wee bit clueless?

Surely we can't consider 5 million phones sold in 72 hours to be a failure on the basis that some bloke guessed it would be double that? Now, if Time Cook had said during his presentation that they estimate 10m units to sell in the first weekend, yes, it would be a let down... but still impressive in of itself.

Five MILLION iPhone 5 sold in a few days is amazing really.

I personally know someone who was in a queue for five and a half hours to get his hands on one on launch day... an interesting experience, apparently, but not one he will repeat.

Any product that causes millions of people around the world to queue outside stores for hours to get hold of it is not a failure. And those people are, by default, idiots, just because they choose to join that line. The person i know who did so is a very clever guy, and is tech savvy. And he knew he could have pre-ordered and had it on launch day (just like his brother did), but he wanted to experience the whole thing ... and apparently many people around him in the queue said they were there for the same reason.

It's simple

They loaded IOS6 onto their iPhone 4, and then couldn't find the Apple Store because of the broken maps.

Put me down for a 'meh'

The only thing the 5 release did for me was to finally give in to my corporate overlord's 'suggestion' that I trade in my 4 for a company 4s. Compatible peripherals and cheaper ones in future to boot!

Saw my first one in the flesh today and it had the unfortunate luck of being owned by someone who I've never really had a lot of time for. As soon as he said the screen 'looked better' I began my informed response that lasted 5 minutes and finally got around to that, while it was slimmer, it was overall about the same size as my 4s in its Mophie pack just slimmer - until 'How is the battery life anyway?' ended the conversation there and then.

Yes, I've seen the benchmark tests that rate it as 'off the scale' but when using it didn't really notice any difference.

Whats this hate squirm?

Don;t they mean 'leave me alone you bully'

Can't the 5 million stand up for themselves?

In summary

Some people bought a phone. Not as many as some other people predicted.

Next story ...

I just had a go on one in the Apple shop.

The long screen is very awkward. Why did they do that? They should have made it bigger in the same ratio.

A longer screen is no improvement for reading - wbe pages, emails or ebooks. Nor is it good for maps or photos.

Only for watching films in widescreen, which is just about the only thing I have never done with my old iPhone.

I guess Apple just couldn't accept the fact that the market has settled on, and customers have voted with their feet for, a slightly larger screen size for smartphones than they originally came up with. Therefore they had to do something different to spite their customers.

That stuff about "being able to use it with one hand" is a load of crap.

Also ios6 isn't much of an improvement.

Otherwise it is very nice.

Analysts are a joke. I have way more respect for someone with a job title of "dirty dick sucker". It's like that guy guy that predicted Nintendo would release a HD wii nearly every year of its life. Eventually you'd think people would realise how many times you're wrong and ignore you.

AT&T waiting

AT&T could not/would not commit to a ship date for my very first iPhone, a new number added to an existing account, but insisted my service charges would start the moment the order was placed. Might take weeks to arrive. So I'm waiting until the 5 is available over the counter, or until I change my mind, whichever comes first.

5 Million is still...

...a lot of damn idiots!