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This is the guestimate of all guestimates...2009???
No one even knows what could be available in 2009.
How about analysts worry about 2007/2008. Are these guys actually paid to predict 2009?
What a waste of time for me.

Just make it an even billion.

2.8% worldwide is a bit of a stretch. What percentage of the third world market are cheapies on a prepaid plan? On the other hand, the elite could go for it in a big way.

Less is more:
So the "third world" uses prepaid cell phones eh? Wow you sound like a real world traveler. Here's a little education: if you live in a third world country you are either too poor to have a fscking phone much less a CELL phone, or you are an agent of the government/royal family/multinational corporation whose job it is to repress the horde of poor for your own greed. Therefore, no, you're not using a cheap phone on a prepaid plan. You ass. There is no "upper lower class". There's the wealthy few and the poor starving masses.

Maybe you mean developing nation?

MDN word: story, let me tell you one.

Less is more,

I believe that when he says "worldwide," he is not referring to third world markets, he means places like Japan, Europe and Australia... Along with the US, those major markets should easily be enough to capture 2.8% marketshare with a product as revolutionary as the iPhone.

I predict it will be well over 100 million.

Hype much, this toy. Fills need for many not. - Yoda

So, he applied the iPod sales history to the iPhone?

I predict 75 million in 2009, even though manufacturers can produce only 20 million a year.

They are raising expectations to impossible levels, and then complain that Apple doesn't meet expectations.

But will it come with cowbell?

I think while analysts are guilty about "overstating" sales estimates for Apple, Apple itself outsmarts these analysts by "understating" what it actually hopes to sell, which privately is probably closer to the figure the analysts predict.

Provided the iPhone doesn't come up with some unexpected defects or shortcomings in actual-use conditions, I think the sky is the limit in this worldwide billion-phones-a-year market.

An unrelated question, if someone would be kind enough to answer it: On the Apple site, the updated Boot Camp release says it supports Vista. My impression was that there were some big obstacles to running Vista on Macs. Have these problems been solved? And can ALL versions of Vista run with Boot Camp (and Parallels)?

Comment to "me":

Currently, the fastest-growing cell phone market is Africa. As someone who travels there (especially to Kenya, Zambia, and some of the West African countries) I can tell you that you would be hard pressed in any city in Kenya, for example, to find anyone who didn't have TWO cell phones (one for Safari.com and one for CelTel). Even in the small towns cell phone use is growing dramatically.

This is also true for the countries of Southeast Asia: Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc: cell phones are hugely popular and very widely-adopted.

I recommend this article from the NY Times, but there are many, many articles written about this phenomenon:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/25/international/africa/25africa.html?ex=1282622400&en=32b49363eac57aae&ei=5090

So before you criticize others for their lack of experience in the world, you may want to spend a little time in developing countries yourself.

I predict they will sell as many as they can make until they can make as many as they can sell, then they'll sell as many as they can sell and make. Plus or minus fifty thousand.

Guess who'll be lining up early for an iPhone? The boys from Redmond! They'll take a couple of hundred...just for research, y'know, for the various departments. Ballmer will take a few, just so he can crush one with his heel to make a point in some meeting. Ahh, who cares?

Comment to "JS" about the comment made by "me".

JS, you have a very good point about the growth of cell phones in Africa and many other poorer nations. Another factor that is interesting is that it is actually cheaper for many people in these nations to get a cell phone compared to a landline because they don't have the infrastructure for land lines. It is far cheaper to put one cell tower in the middle of a town or village than it is to run individual wires to everyone's home.

This is actually one of the reason's that the US tends to not always have the best standards. The US is generally an early adopter of technology, which is generally good, but the technology often seems dated when newer tech comes out that other countries install. Case in point - the US was very late to reliable cell phone networks and PAL is a much better standard than NTSC. Just my observation.

"the US was very late to reliable cell phone networks and PAL is a much better standard than NTSC."

And we drive on the right side of the road! - silly 'mericans.

The assumption that the "Third World" means abject poverty and starvation and misery is a rather ethno-centric viewpoint.
Granted, there are places inside some of these developing countries where this occurs, but it is often triggered by warped and twisted versions of "Freedom, Democracy, and Capitalism" coupled with unethical business practices of a few bad corporations.

The rest of the world does not have to be made in the image of the "West".

Swing Geezer,

I'm guessing that you, like the previous commenter "me", haven't spent much time in developing countries (please correct me if I'm wrong).

As someone who makes 5+ trips per year to some of the poorest nations on earth, and has been doing so for 15+ years, I can tell you that it is not "warped and twisted versions of 'Freedom, Democracy, and Capitalism" or "unethical business practices of a few bad corporations" that create misery in developing countries.

It is simply the greed of those who hold government power, abetted by those in developed countries like ours who blithely dispense "aid" money to corrupt governments worldwide and hope that the money finds its way to the poor, a method that has consistently failed to produce results for 50 years (what is it they call someone who continues the same unsuccessful approach but hopes for a different result?)

On the other hand, the advent of the cell phone in developing countries -- and all the economic opportunities that cheap, fast communications can create -- is a great example of how private enterprise, seeking profit, has benefited all by providing a valuable service for a fair price. And without government intervention, or charity money.

I agree with Georgy Porgy. 2009 is way too far away to make any sort of reliable predictions regarding a product, especially an Apple product. All Apple fans should stay focused on the sales of iPhone in 2007 before thinking so far into the future. While this is admittedly unlikely, the iPhone could be the biggest flop since the Zune.