Report: 1 Million iPhones Activated

Less than a week after its debut, the iPhone is sold out at all Apple (AAPL) retail stores except two, according to the company's online iPhone availability tool.

One of the stores with iPhones still in stock is in the Shadyside section of Pittsburgh, next to a Banana Republic. The other is directly in front of a Regal Cinema in the Bridgeport Village shopping center in Tigard, Oregon, nine miles south of Portland.

The number of iPhones Apple had stockpiled at its 164 stores last Friday is still a closely held secret. But an unconfirmed report at the website waitingforphone, quoting an anonymous staffer in ATT Mobilty’s Commerce Group, suggests that AT&T  (T) may have already fulfilled more than 1 million iPhone activations.

Macrumors, which reposted the 1 million figure, suggests that the July 4 holiday may have delayed restocking shipments.

AT&T's 1,800 retail outlets were all but sold out early this week. The  company formerly known as Cingular has been criticized for the spotty performance of its EDGE data network and for delays in iPhone activations that for some customers lasted up to three days.

AT&T's public stance is that delays were inevitable and neither company's fault, but it may be quietly trying to shift some of the blame to Apple. According to waitingforphone:

“Apple has been a pain to work with,” the ATT source was quoted to say. “They were so secretive about the iPhone they only released the final activation API to us the day of the launch. Most people didn’t even know they were activating through ATT with iTunes and not through Apple.”

At least some iPhones were held back for online orders. Customers who bought them through Apple's website last Friday  were told to expect a 2-4 week delay. Some have since been informed that their orders will be shipping as early as Friday July 6.

Comments

[Russell Jeffords]

Finally, a relatively unbiased report - still you manage to bing and bash AT&T, but at least you're a little more subtle.

Again, I must state for the record that Biz2.0 is owned by Time-Warner, which has a HUGE stake in bashing all things AT&T. The bias shown in most "articles," here, within Time magazine, on CNN, and other Time-Warner organs has been oppressive.

[zgh1999]

Let me get this straight.

First, you persistently posted negative articles bashing the iPhone prior to its launch.

Now, you are posting articles about 1 million iPhones sold, without any concrete evidence or support?

You heard someone say 1 million iPhones have been activated? Well, I heard 100 million iPhones have been activated.

It seems rather apparent that all you care about is coming up with sensational "news" about the iPhone in order to drive traffic to your site, without regard to the truth.

If you are going to make up "truths" as you go, at least be consistent. If you want to bash the iPhone, at least bash it all the way, and not change sides when its success is apparent.

What a loser. Where is your jounalistic integrity?

[Kevin]

I was at the Apple Store in the Rockaway Mall in Rockaway, NJ Tuesday evening and they had "plenty" of iPhones in stock. I think Apple is making it seem like there is more of a demand than what there actually is.

If you look on eBay, there are thousands of iPhones for sale, some of them are not selling, and the ones that do sell are only going for $50 over list.

There is clearly not as big of a demand as people thought there would be.

[ratty]

@Kevin

I would suggest that Apple's stocking exceeded the Ebay guys trying to make a quick scalp of iPhone users. Which basically shows these idiots that they had NO idea what Apple were going to do with the thing...

[midas350]

It would be more responsible to wait for Apple and AT&T to release sales figures.

This is exact reason why blogging is just a hobby and should never be taken seriously.

Journalism for fun.

[dave Small]

Regardless of whether they sold half a million or a million in the first 4 days this is still the most impressive launch in cell phone history.

Some prognosticators are predicting that demand will slow down once all of the Apple enthusiasts have bought their iPhone.

I think just the opposite. Apple now has perhaps 500,000 or 1,000,000 additional sales people added to their sales force at no cost to them. IPhone owners are so enthusiastic, and everyone else is so curious, that there will be millions of iPhone demonstrations being conducted today and every day for the next few months. That will sell a lot more iPhones.

And the next shoe to drop will be a new high-end iPod having most of these features (but not the cell phone). That will further kick up demand.

Say bye bye to Apple's current stock price as it sets off in pursuit of Google. Say bye bye to Zune as it gets crushed under the Apple steamroller. Blackberry and Treo had better make sure that their life insurance policies are paid up.

[Alex]

At least the scalpers selling at ebay has another week to return the phones. Otherwise They'll be wasting their time and money for nothing. Its good of apple to rip them off for these people are too lazy to get a job.

[Chuck Smith]

I think the people who do not want to break their current phone contract are just iPhone potential buyers and will filter in as their contracts expire thereby keeping up the demand.

[Todd]

Have to agree with Alex. After showing the phone to a few people they did buy one off the Apple Store. Nobody I know expect for a handful actually purchased from AT&T... But that may be partly my fault as I stated "who do you think is gonna get the phone to you quicker, the manufacure or the the dealer?".

We'll know the first 2 sale days with the Apple Earnings report (available live through quicktime on their site BTW). But Apple estimated 1 million phones by end of 07', 10mil by 2010. These numbers seem very, very conservative considering we were seeing sales figures of 200-500k on opening weekend. And the KOP store having 200+ in inventory early this week and not having any, after getting a shipment in twice would leave me to beleive that 1m+ seems about right for the last week or so.

Activation was HORENDOUS over the initial weekend, I had to do 9 phones at my house because Windows kept asking for drivers on some friends machines. So we fired up all 7 Mac's and went through activation for every one. 2 took until July 3rd! But mostly in part to AT&T. Only 1 activated Saturday night. The others activated on Sunday and one on Monday.

However the integration of the iPhone into OS X is superb! We swept over movies and video's with ease, even ones NOT in iTunes on the Mac's. Windows however has prooved to be troublesome and integration is not as good, but that's actually a fault of WINDOWS not the iPhone. Things you can do on a Mac you can't do on windows thus you can't do them period. Still compared to a Crackberry or Treo and one friend was actually switching from a Panasonic SmartPhone said it was 1000x's better and easier to use and sync with Windows then the previous device.

They were all floored at the ease of use of OS X, so maybe they'll be buying Macs too. I Know of one person who is currently looking for a gently used Intel mac to replace there brand new Dell simply because the iPhone (not integration issues just the general ease of use and features).

[D]

1 million devices sold does not mean 1 million devices were activated.

Nor does it mean there were 1 million new customers. At least half, if not more of the devices sold, were sold to existing at&t customers.

[Kevin]

I was just at the Columbia Mall in Maryland today and they still had some in stock.

ex ped: I'm seeing scattered reports of Apple stores that have a handful of iPhones on hand -- some of them through returns -- but don't have enough units for the light to turn green on the Apple availability tool. --Philip Elmer-DeWitt

[blue horse shoe]

whatever the number is the loss 200-500K subscribers is a ton of revenue lost (permanently) by the other carriers in a single week! I think Apple will have demonstrated a supreme flexing of muscle that will give them some serious street cred in future negotiations. I'm still baffled why Apple chose to do an exclusive deal with any single Carrier. They could have made Iphones that work with each carrier and delivered a Mozambique drill to the other handset makers.
With nothing on the horizon coming even remotely close to the Iphone and it's REAL internet you'd be smart to buy some Appl. Luckily Blackberry have a strangle hold on corp. email. The others will be relegated to the el cheapo sub $100 cell phone sector to the 3rd world.
APPLE and RIM are two plays of the Cell Phone 2.0

[Common Sense]

Who cares? It's a cell phone. There are some pathetic people out there taking days off from work to wait in line. And, oh yeah, AT&T is BRUTAL at everything thing they do except sucking. That they excel at...

[Happy Enough]

I ordered two iPhones through the online Apple Store on the night of the launch - actually within minutes of the launch; I had an original shipping estimate of two to four weeks; however - my phones have shipped and per FedEx are to arrive by 10:30 am tomorrow (Friday 7/6) - one week from launch / order. Not bad. I am an existing ATT customer (actually Cingular), and I assume a greater percentage of iPhone buyers are ATT/Cingular customers simply because existing customers are already happy enough with the service and don't have the extra hassle of changing cell phone companies and/or interrupting current family plans or free mobile to mobile that they have with their present carrier.

[cody]

quote
------

Finally, a relatively unbiased report - still you manage to bing and bash AT&T, but at least you're a little more subtle.

Again, I must state for the record that Biz2.0 is owned by Time-Warner, which has a HUGE stake in bashing all things AT&T. The bias shown in most "articles," here, within Time magazine, on CNN, and other Time-Warner organs has been oppressive.

Posted by: Russell Jeffords | July 05, 2007 at 07:20 AM
--------------------------------------------

Why don't you keep your biased comments to yourself. If you don't like it go somewhere else to get your source on the iphones.

[mattk]

I easily walked into the Cambridge Apple store late Saturday afternoon and bought one. I walked by the ATT store in downtown boston at 5pm and saw about 20 people in line. I am not sure I will keep it, was fun to rent for a 10% fee for a week or two. Clearly was not an issue to get one.

[namebutler]

Any comments on the overheating issue? I'm wondering if someone has experienced this first hand. Or is it just a MSNBC news story?

[jcatma61]

“Apple has been a pain to work with,” the ATT source was quoted to say. “They were so secretive about the iPhone they only released the final activation API to us the day of the launch. Most people didn’t even know they were activating through ATT with iTunes and not through Apple.”

Utterly ridiculous. Aside from the actual branding within iTunes, and the fact that this "ATT source" is either a disaffected, moron lackey employee who wasn't asked to be at the store last Friday night, or the stupidest AT&T "source" of record in the history of the brand.

This is clearly not a management source since no self-respecting human with authority would make such an idiotic statement (akin to "our customers didn't even know what was going on..."), which leads me to believe this is either the aforementioned lackey, or a "source" unworthy of anything.

Next!

[Ames Tiedeman]

Who said the iphone would be a flop? That sales wold be low?
Fools! Who was the idot that said to short Apple last month? Another fool! Where are you now?

[ivan]

well-designed email solution for small business is more than ready for the iPhone revolution. With the release of Apple's new iPhone imminent and the computer industry becoming focused on applications that are no longer anchored to the desktop
http://www.goiphonestore.com