MacDailyNews - Where Mac news comes first

the polemic that Apple attracts never ceases to amaze me... regardless of whether it was contrived or not

Stop the election, it offends me!

Be careful what you wish for, I wouldn't put it past our officials to do just that.

As for Apple and the iPhone? With the amount of ginning in today's media, I'm surprised anyone noticed.

Jan 25, 08 - 06:18 pm Comment from: G4Dualie

Good. I'm going to bed.

I wouldn't be surprised if this was just some of SJ "misguidance" in action.

Clearly Apple knows immediately how many sales of what and where have occurred.

Anyone who has bought anything in a Apple Store knows how detailed Apple is about everything.

Jan 25, 08 - 06:34 pm Comment from: NeoReven

If I may ask, why would it matter if /any/ iPhones are 'missing' ?
Apple got paid.
Now, if an entire truck of iPhones to be shipped went missing...then that would be a bit more interesting. Or at least be worthy of attention.

I second G4Dualie: I'm going to bed.

Jan 25, 08 - 06:41 pm Comment from: Jubei

MDN is 100% correct with their comment here. I hope MDN takes notes of all these analyst and writers that succeeded in manipulating Apple stock to extremely low levels. Possibly destroying any hope of hitting the $200 plus mark. Too bad they are allowed to continue in their business without reprimands for their obvious agendas.

Jan 25, 08 - 06:43 pm Comment from: MCCFR

NeoReven is absolutely correct; the only way in which these units have gone AWOL is that they don't contribute a residual income which increases the quite reasonable profit margins into something that – if it were another company – might be called obscene.

I don't know what they're putting in water in the US this year, but I get the distinct impression that a lot of people made a New Year's Resolution to be what we in the UK call (with all respect to Jim Henson) a muppet.

This is wrong. Unlike Microsoft Apple does not report channel inventory as "sales," they only report actual sales as sales.

The numbers Piper is using are highly dubious though and their assumptions are just ridiculous. The missing iPhones are iPhones bought by people in countries where the iPhone is not "officialy" there yet. Canada alone could easily account for about 350 to 400 thousand of them and hundreds of thousands have been sold in Asia at minimum.

Jan 25, 08 - 06:55 pm Comment from: wleddy

I've read some speculation that AT&T;'s figure of 2 million may be primarily *new* accounts and wouldn't count existing subscribers who have since added an iPhone...

Jan 25, 08 - 06:58 pm Comment from: R

Most won't remember because they're fairly new to Apple and the tumultuous world of being chased by the rest of the world, but a few years ago, just after Apple stock price had begun to boom, there was a major pause as investors started to freak out, thinking there was no way AAPL growth could be sustained. Months went by with little movement, then things broke out again. What had happened in the meantime is that small investors were sent looking elsewhere for their quick buck while Apple continued to grow strong. Soon, big investors jumped aboard again and that brings us to the current time.

There will be a pause now, but until Apple is the one that shoots itself in the foot, it's a growth story. It's profitable, makes GREAT stuff we like to use, so enjoy and don't sweat the small stuff. The future is amazingly bright for this company-- and the cool thing is that they're now in a position to really influence everyone else. Things will get very cool tech-wise in a short time.

Star Trek, here we come!

Just follow the money in reverse that pleases the constituents...everything points to Redmond's waning influence.
They all seem to be popping up at once, too. At least they could all communicate and agree not look so obvious.

Protect Microsoft at all costs!

Think how foolish everyone would look if Microsoft starts to fail - after all the money that's been invested into that slag heap.

All MS supporters can chant in unison after each year that Apple post profit. "They can't do it again" now repeat it next year - like you did the years before. AGAIN.

Who's keeping track that MS can't do it again?

I'm sure Apple and AT&T;(and Apple's European carriers) know exactly how many iPhones have been sold and how many have been activated. The number is not going to match because many thousands upon thousands of iPhones were bought, not activated, and sold to people in non-US countries before the European markets came online, and to other countries outside the US and Europe.

Why are people doubting how many iPhones Apple has sold? They have to report these figures to the SEC, shareholders, etc., and the sale figures are available to shareholders who wish to examine the company's books.

Frankly, this is a non-issue and non-story.

Actually, I can't believe I just wasted 5 min. of my life commenting on it.

Screw the analysts, I'm going out with my wife.

Just for the record: We have 2 of those "missing" iPhones here at home.

There was a story on how many iPhones are sent to India (and unlocked.)
I personally know several people who bought iPhones and took them to Europe.
No channel stuffing here, this is not a Zune.

Jan 25, 08 - 09:44 pm Comment from: motopsyco

I'm surprised no one has figured this out yet.

It's Steve Ballmer. He's taken to throwing iPhones since he's run out of chairs!

If I'm doing the arithmetic right, yep, that accounts for all the missing ones.

This is a pic I snapped on NOVEMBER 22, 2007 while working in Vietnam.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22021035@N07/2219482846/

I was also in Beijing and Thailand and saw a stores selling iPhones there too, unfortunately I did not have a camera to get a pic.

In the silk market in Beijing there were at least 4 little stores selling iPhones. There were original and unlocked. The guys selling them would not drop below $800 US.

This can help explain some of the "missing" phones.

I have two of the 'missing' phones here in my house in Vancouver, Canada.
There are at least 1200 ads on Craigslist at any given time for the last 6 months selling iPhones.
There must be 50,000 in Vancouver alone.

They're asking more than $800 in the Philippines too.

My friend just received an iPhone from USA as a birthday gift and was puzzled what means "Welcome to Your New iPhone..Let's get started...1. Activate your iPhone with AT&T;..." all in English in Chinese iMac. I think that will be one of the missing phones. Useless. At least she can charge people 50 cents to see it, unless she goes to Beijing to get it deactivated.

Should probably say "get it activated" and leave the deactivated for the iTunes iPhone "Welcome" screen.

There are no missing posts on MDN either

Munster is wrong (as others have noted)... to the extent Apple sells direct, inventory is inventory not sales. Only AT&T;'s (and the europeans') inventory counts as sold.

The obvious conclusion is what we have already observed: grey market/asian demand for unlocked iPhones is huge.

That's a plus in that people really want the phones.
It's a minus, financially to apple, in that it's cut of subscriber fees will be less.

Since this is a new product, I'd say the plus greatly outweighs the minus.

And at $130/share, I figure the market is valuing the entire iPhone franchise at about ZERO.

=====

If the momentum continues to drive the stock down, all Apple has to do is announce a share buyback and the shorts will get murdered. This also would end the discount sale on the stock.

Growth company with $22/share IN CASH. This is going to be interesting.

It isn't just Asia that has bagged unlocked iPhones, I met someone this weekend in the UK who had an unlocked iPhone, a present from someone who had brought back a whole load from a trip to NY - before the UK launch.

All I can say about all this is so what? Apple's results next quarter will be 30% up on the year before and it's stores will still be full to overflowing.

Quite how the markets have dealt with Apple shares in the same manner as Motorola's - who really are sinking, beats me!

Jan 26, 08 - 07:23 am Comment from: R

After the almost-certain-to-be-coming Special iPhone Event, the announcement of the SDK and some new killer apps, third-party and otherwise, the news will once again change to Apple "coming back from the dead," "Apple: Down, but not out, "Apple: Nothing's really changed, but we need to sell papers and manipulate the markets."

Hang in there, kids. Strong company, strong future.

Last chance to buy below $130! Or whatever the current stock price is...

Jan 26, 08 - 09:04 am Comment from: NeoReven

It might be possible that stock price has almost nothing to do with how Apple is fairing right now.

Just because a company's stock isn't worth much in dollars, doesn't automatically mean the company is in a slump. All it means is the value of the _Stock_ is down as a _common_ investment choice.
If I remember right, Apple was around $30-$50 when they released OS X. We all know the stock he hold dear to our hearts will soar when panic over nothing ceases. I hope some more people get out for now to get the stock price down, for now.

Maybe I'm just stupid or not reading the right websites. Buuuut...The comments I read that came from AT&T;'s earnings report where that AT&T;has 2 million "New iPhone Subscribers" not 2 million iPhone activations.

I read this to mean that 2 million new people joined AT&T;in order to use an iPhone but I don't think that number is counting a whole lot of folks like me that already had an account with AT&T;and just added the iPhone to the plain we already had.

Jan 26, 08 - 10:39 am Comment from: LorD1776

Just read Daniel Eran Dilger's column.

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2008/01/25/tom-krazit-of-cnet-and-eric-savitz-of-barrons-deny-the-jesus-phone/

There are no ‘missing’ Apple iPhones

There are no American tanks in Bagdad either.

Jan 26, 08 - 11:35 am Comment from: shen

"It might be possible that stock price has almost nothing to do with how Apple is fairing right now."

who knows, maybe a 75 billion dollar dump by a rogue investor in europe that started a chain reaction and drove all the worlds markets down had something to do with it?

nah!

It might be possible that stock price has almost nothing to do with how Apple is fairing right now.

If stock prices truly reflected a company's health, MSFT would have less than half the market cap of AAPL, instead of the other way around.

Hmmm... purchased before Dec 2nd, but not activitated. Perhaps they were sitting under XMAS trees until Dec. 25th.

Jan 26, 08 - 04:37 pm Comment from: alansky

Apple certainly isn't perfect, but they DO try harder than most of their competitors, which makes everybody else look like the lazy, greedy slobs they really are and they resent being exposed, which inevitably makes them hostile toward the companies whose excellent, well-thoought-out products makes the rest look so bad.

Jan 26, 08 - 05:13 pm Comment from: Dialtone

How about a MacDailyNews analyst index which rates the overall quality of their predictions and presents it in a simple, ongoing sidebar graphic?

Jan 26, 08 - 05:46 pm Comment from: LorD1776

Index? We don't need no stinking index!

1.5 million or 700 000--thats a lot of phones--think of it as a percentage of the amount purported to have been sold and it doesnt look good--nevertheless I am amazed at these apple sell offs because it doesnt happen to any other stock--I mean between apple or lululemon or gamestop or solar--Id bet on apple--think of all the apple products--the ipods--the software--the macs the iphone ....I am disappointed with the new "air"--i would have liked to see something smaller and something a little faster--the thinness of it does not impress me at all. But its a nice thing. My worry is that Apple will never come back. If Apple misses the next quarter its all over.

Haha MDN is pathetic deleting my posts! Just goes to show that the site is run by a bunch of amatuers - you can dish it out but you cant take it can you MDN?

<bNeoReven

If I may ask, why would it matter if /any/ iPhones are 'missing' ?</b>

As Daniel proposes, the article more ridiculous "Apple is the New Microsoft" horse twaddle. In this respect, the lazy pundit accuses Apple of stuffing the channel with iPhones and then claiming they were sold, like MS claimed that "shipped" equaled "sold" and pretended that all the Xboxs sitting on shelves gathering dust were in the hands of consumers.

"f I may ask, why would it matter if /any/ iPhones are 'missing' ?
Apple got paid."

What if Apple just made up how many they shipped, or stuffed a million units into the channel to try to keep up the pretense that the unit is selling well?

Its the oldest trick in the book for a struggling company.

As the stock option thing shows, Steve's not above a little fraud when it benefits him.

Jan 28, 08 - 12:26 am Comment from: DogGone

On another forum someone pointed out that Apple said they had sold 3.7M iPhones since the release to end of the last quarter. That includes the few weeks in the previous quarter where they sold over a million.

ATT said they activated 2M the last quarter. This doesn't include the activations in the first quarter the iPhone was sold.

So the missing iPhones could be no more than 0.5M, given that 0.3M were sold in Europe.

What about the grey market? Over here in my country (Netherlands) you can't get an "official" iPhone and won't for months to come, but I have one, several friends an colleagues and when I go out I often see someone with it in a bar or café. We are in between Germany and France and UK where they do sell them. I got mine with 2 year subscription of 30 euro a month for only 190 euros. Unlocked 1.0, upgraded and re-unlocked it myself to 1.1.1. My friends' is 1.1.2 with hardware unlock. I guess there account for the "missing" Phones, don't think Apple is playinng the inventory trick.

Jan 28, 08 - 05:16 am Comment from: LorD1776

Shocked Reader = putz