Why Apple will sell 10 million iPhones in 2008

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Sunday, 03 June 2007 15:48

Your IT - Mobility

The iPhone will be here on June 30 (probably, says Jobs), and with approved third party support getting the green light and on the way, the iPhone will either very quickly capture the hearts and minds of US consumers – or will leave us all waiting for version 2.0.

In an interview with Walt Mossberg at the D: All Things Digital conference, where Steve Jobs announced that Apple TV was now supporting YouTube, Jobs confirmed a few additional tid-bits of info about the iPhone without letting anything major slip early.

After Steve Jobs was explaining to Mossberg and the assembled audience members that Apple was “on track to ship iPhone in late June as planned”, Mossberg asked “Like the last day of June?”, with Jobs replying after laughter “Yeah, probably”.

Given Jobs’ launching of iTunes Plus on the last day possible in May, a mini-precedent has been set as Jobs works hard to ensure the launch goes as smoothly as possible in a world where a fellow called Murphy inspired a famous law.

But despite some problems with Apple products, like 1st-gen nano screens scratching easily, moo-ing Mac books, battery recalls and more, the iPhone is Apple’s most revolutionary product ever, aiming to be an ultra mobile PC or ‘multimedia computer’, even more so than Nokia thanks to the iPhone’s implementation of OS X, which Jobs assures us is as powerful as the Mac OS X used in iMac computers.

Jobs also answered some questions about why 2.5G instead of 3G, and Jobs says that Wi-Fi is “way faster than 3G”. He also says that Apple is working on ways to let developers build applications for the iPhone so it doesn’t crash several times a day, and really, so it doesn’t crash at all. Jobs then said that “We would like to solve this problem and if you could just be a little more patient with us, we’ll do it.”

Now, against this backdrop is an interesting article from Lance Davis of the Register, whose article is entitled “Why Apple won’t sell 10 million iPhones in 2008”.

Here he says that most phones are “super cheap”, but smartphones are different, with the Blackberry yet to sell 10 million units. He also says to look at AT&T subscriber base which is 56.3 million subscribers, not all of whom are going to buy a new phone, and he notes that half a million sales is considered a huge success.

Of course, in 2008, the iPhone is supposed to be on sale in Europe, Asia and Australia, making the reaching of a 10 million target that much easier, as there are many more people to sell to, many of whom either know about or already own an iPod.

Davis exclaims that phone companies don’t like doing things differently, and gives as an example Motorola’s failure of getting a ‘visual voicemail’ feature implemented by networks a decade ago.

Funny, it seems AT&T is willing enough to make the change, it’s certainly a feature I’d love to use on my existing phone, and I look forward to an iPhone giving me this ability – if Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG and other phone companies don’t already have this planned with cell phone companies worldwide to eliminate it as an iPhone exclusive feature.

Davis also says that smartphones are often late, and that phone companies like their phones to be rock solid before release, but that’s odd – phones have firmware updates all the time, especially these days, and it’s always advisable to upgrade for better speed, bugfixes and more. On this topic, Jobs says the iPhone will be on time. We’ll see, I guess, although I’d have my money on Jobs on this one.

Apple surely can't fail to sell 10 million iPhones by 2008, can it? Please read onto page 2 for the conclusion!