Still More Apple Pwnage

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Pekka
I don't know about this debate anymore. I don't know why AT&T inventory is important. As far as Apple goes, hey, it's AT&Ts problem if they still have too big of an inventory. Units are sold. I don't see what the point is, that the figures would be inflated or what, but Apple sold them already and ... if they are in the hands of an actual end user, to me it's not so important.

Asher is claiming that ATT has so many iphones that the sales figures are misleading. That's why I'm saying that the inventory can't be that big. Even if ATT ordered too many, the amount can't be nearly as many as Asher is claiming. Indeed, Asher won't even say (even ball park) how many he is claiming.

I'm starting to think he is just trolling. This is the most ridiculous argument I've seen since Ned denied the US tortured prisoners.

[Pekka]

And about shipping via air, I don't think Apple can afford it or should do it all the time, definitely not daily and definitely not when it goes global.

Big giants do this, but not ALL orders, and they have good deals with providers. They definitely don't pay for the whole thing themselves. An example, if a provider decides that one pallet of the shipment has 4 units that do not meet the requirements for quality (standards agreed upon before), they usually have deals where the manufacturer agrees with failing rate and basically pays for that same freaking pallet or the whole shipment to come back via air, and then they'll fix it and via air it goes back, and time counts. This is expensive for the manufacturer, so quality standards are very crucial, especially when first launching a new product when the processes aren't quite calibrated 100% for that product, or simply human errors, a missing guide is a failing unit. A mark on the package that is too big, the unit is failed. A small dot on the screen, hardly visible to the human eye without freaking 1000lux lights? Failure.

But it's mutually beneficial, because the providers that do these kinds of deals are big, they order a lot and often. So it's about keeping them happy. They want it fast, they want a lot and they want all the time. They want the spesific order to arrive fast, not just the same product. But the point is, if you'd be Apple and doing this, you woudln't actually pay for the whole delivery. The provider chips in. But these are for very large deals. I don't think AT&T has made one, but they really don't need to. They don't need to go over seas and stuff like that. Trucks, trains, ships, these will do for now.

[Pekka]

Kid, well, honestly, I don't know how much AT&T has ordered. It could be a lot or it could be quite OK. I just don't know. From Apple's sake, it doens't matter so much. But from the future poitn of view it matters, beucase it means how popular the product actually is so... if they got 200k that they didn't sell very fast, the figures would be misleading even though Apple got its money.

To me 7:1 seems quite interesting and something I would say is surprising. Maybe not to some experts who predict these kinds of things, but to me it sounds kidn of surprising. I woudl have thought the sales numbers would be closer to each other. So I don't know how misleading the figures are, but it's definitely possible, what the percentage is, impossible to tell at this point.

I'm saying that I have no clue. So... it could be or it could be just fine. I think there's no way to tell it right now, at least not from what I know. Maybe you guys have more sources or read something that makes you believe some figures but as far as me goes, I have no clue what so ever.

I do, however, think that the sales numbers for the first week or two? Definitely overshot and misleading, aside pre-orders that is. But now, 2 months, it's getting more steady but I don't know how steady. Maybe it is steady already or maybe it isn't.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Why should they come from the factory? If I manage a store I want my orders coming from local warehouses.

Good for you. I don't think that's how it works for brand new technology.

Feel free to provide a link that contradicts industry standards.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kidicious
3 weeks is no where near the norm. That is incredibly SLOW!

How fast do you think these boats are? Tell us, kid -- mach 2 or 3?

Then again, maybe the Apple product from last month is in no way indicative of how Apple ships its products last month.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Asher

Good for you. I don't think that's how it works for brand new technology.

Feel free to provide a link that contradicts industry standards.

WTF?! I'm tired of you spouting off industry standards, and you haven't provided any links. I've repeatedly pwned you.

It doesn't make anysense for ATT to get the iphones from China when they can get them in the US from Apple.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Pekka
I don't know about this debate anymore. I don't know why AT&T inventory is important. As far as Apple goes, hey, it's AT&Ts problem if they still have too big of an inventory. Units are sold. I don't see what the point is, that the figures would be inflated or what, but Apple sold them already and ... if they are in the hands of an actual end user, to me it's not so important.

The whole point of the debate has been lost through obfuscation and general bewilderment on Kid's behalf.

The whole point was simple: AT&T's activation numbers have not jived with Apple's reported sales numbers. Further, we know Apple stores outsell AT&T stores 7-1. We know that Apple saw demand fall low enough to warrant a drastic price cut. Either that, or supply was well in excess of demand.

It was my hypothesis that given AT&T's low sales and general bungling of the launch and their widely-known ineptitude, that they ordered more iPhones than they could sell. Thus, the pricecut.

kid then started yammering about the SEC and accountants, for reasons unknown.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Asher

How fast do you think these boats are? Tell us, kid -- mach 2 or 3?

Then again, maybe the Apple product from last month is in no way indicative of how Apple ships its products last month.

Ever hear of a warehouse. Oh wait, my bad, that is the one link that you posted. So what gives?

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kidicious
WTF?! I'm tired of you spouting off industry standards, and you haven't provided any links. I've repeatedly pwned you.

It doesn't make anysense for ATT to get the iphones from China when they can get them in the US from Apple.

So AT&T walks up to the Apple stores, buys some phones, then re-sells those phones?

The point is simple. AT&T is Apple's partner. It makes perfect sense that they have some kind of agreement or arrangement in the distribution and sale of the iPhone. There would be initial order allotments, say X thousands to Apple, X thousands to AT&T.

This is standard practice. It makes no sense to let retail managers of 1,800 stores, to make individual orders for how many they want. I've never, ever, heard of a hyped electronics product launched with the input of 1,800 peon managers -- with knowledge on par with yours, I'm sure. These agreements are made at a much higher level.

For instance, AT&T could've ordered 300,000 while Apple ordered 700,000 of the initial allotment. No, there is no link, so shut up about that -- if you want a link, you don't understand the purpose of conjecture.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Pekka
Kid, well, honestly, I don't know how much AT&T has ordered. It could be a lot or it could be quite OK.

Why could it be a lot? Sure they expected to sell more, but they aren't as stupid as Asher would have you believe. They understand that inventory costs money and there is a significant possibility that they would not sell as many as they thought. They are certainly trained. It's unreasonable to expect trained people to make such decisions.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Ever hear of a warehouse. Oh wait, my bad, that is the one link that you posted. So what gives?

So Apple can utilize warehouses to transport goods manufactured in China to the USA? That's pretty out of the box thinking on their behalf.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Asher

The whole point of the debate has been lost through obfuscation and general bewilderment on Kid's behalf.

The whole point was simple: AT&T's activation numbers have not jived with Apple's reported sales numbers. Further, we know Apple stores outsell AT&T stores 7-1. We know that Apple saw demand fall low enough to warrant a drastic price cut. Either that, or supply was well in excess of demand.

It was my hypothesis that given AT&T's low sales and general bungling of the launch and their widely-known ineptitude, that they ordered more iPhones than they could sell. Thus, the pricecut.

kid then started yammering about the SEC and accountants, for reasons unknown.

You've already been pwned on all of that in the other thread. The reason that I'm bringing up GAAP regulations should be quite clear. I've posted them already.

[Agathon]

Man this is just retarded.

Note to everyone. Asher is full of ****, as can be checked by anyone who can Google.

Apple's own prediction made at their last analysts' conference call back in mid July (when the iPhone had still been on sale for less than a month) was that they would sell 730,000 phones in the fourth quarter (ends Sept 30th), to make a million cumulative (added to the 270,000 they sold in the first two days).

Macworld reported it here, 9 weeks ago.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/07/25/liveupdate/index.php

Yet Apple passed that goal 3 weeks early.

According to Gene Munster, who is the most prominent analyst following Apple, they would have made that goal even without the price cut (which he estimates has tripled sales). He estimates they were selling about 9,000 a day on average, and were 136,000 shy of the goal on the day of the price cut. That would have put them over the goal 16 days after the price cut if it hadn't happened.

http://blogs.business2.com/apple/2007/09/report-price-cu.html

The facts.

1. iPhone demand was especially high in the first few weeks the device was on the market. After the first couple of days, Apple stores were running out of stock on a regular basis for the next two weeks. Blackfriars Marketing has issued a handy little movie which shows this (an analyst looked at availability each day and then made a movie)

http://www.blackfriarsinc.com/blog/2007/09/one-million-iphones-sold

AT&T stores were selling out during the same period, although they had hardly anywhere near the stock of Apple Stores.

2. Apple reported to its shareholders back in July that they expected to sell a million phones by the end of the quarter.

3. Even without the price cut, it seems that Apple would have passed the million mark 1-1 1/2 weeks early. As it is, they passed it 3 weeks early with the bump from the price cut.

4. Why would a company engage in a panic price cut when sales were in line with its own expectations, which were issued back when the product was new and was still a hot seller?

5. There's no evidence that AT&T is hoarding a massive glut of unsold iPhones, and it would be really weird and contrary to decent business practice if they did.

Asher's insane story just doesn't fit with the facts. iPhone sales were in line with Apple's own estimates given ages before the price cut.

From what we do know, we can conclude that iPhone sales were in line with Apple's expectations, and Apple made an aggressive price cut to ramp up sales for the holidays, which caused it to beat its own expectations even earlier (although it would have beaten them anyway).

[Asher]

Originally posted by Kidicious
Why could it be a lot? Sure they expected to sell more, but they aren't as stupid as Asher would have you believe. They understand that inventory costs money and there is a significant possibility that they would not sell as many as they thought. They are certainly trained. It's unreasonable to expect trained people to make such decisions.

The iPhone was hyped. It was a HUGE launch. Do you think AT&T would risk having only a handful of phones they sold from their stores?

1,000,000 phones sold. Apple is outselling AT&T 7-1, so that gives AT&T 142,857 phones sold.

142,857 phones sold from 1,800 stores over 74 days. That's about 1 phone per store per day.

Given the enormity of the launch and all of the hype, are you saying AT&T correctly predicted that each store would only sell 7 phones a week? I think if AT&T predicted such low sales, they wouldn't have paid to enter into a 5-year exclusive agreement for the phone.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Agathon
Man this is just retarded.

Note to everyone. Asher is full of ****, as can be checked by anyone who can Google.

Apple's own prediction made at their last analysts' conference call back in mid July (when the iPhone had still been on sale for less than a month) was that they would sell 730,000 phones in the fourth quarter (ends Sept 30th), to make a million cumulative (added to the 270,000 they sold in the first two days).

Macworld reported it here, 9 weeks ago.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2007/07/25/liveupdate/index.php

Yet Apple passed that goal 3 weeks early.

WTF do goals have to do with anything discussed here? Absolutely nothing.

According to Gene Munster, who is the most prominent analyst following Apple, they would have made that goal even without the price cut (which he estimates has tripled sales).

I've never heard of the guy before...

1. iPhone demand was especially high in the first few weeks the device was on the market. After the first couple of days, Apple stores were running out of stock on a regular basis for the next two weeks. Blackfriars Marketing has issued a handy little movie which shows this (an analyst looked at availability each day and then made a movie)

http://www.blackfriarsinc.com/blog/2007/09/one-million-iphones-sold

AT&T stores were selling out during the same period, although they had hardly anywhere near the stock of Apple Stores.

Your link does not support your claim, and your link is an opinion blog so it wouldn't matter anyway.

You forgot this fact: Even 2 days after the 33% pricecut, 99% of Apple stores had iPhones in stock. Now imagine the situation before the pricecut...

2. Apple reported to its shareholders back in July that they expected to sell a million phones by the end of the quarter.

Irrelevant.

3. Even without the price cut, it seems that Apple would have passed the million mark 1-1 1/2 weeks early. As it is, they passed it 3 weeks early with the bump from the price cut.

Nonsense, unsubstantiated. If Apple thought they could make their targets without a pricecut, why would they cut into their profits so heavily?

4. Why would a company engage in a panic price cut when sales were in line with its own expectations, which were issued back when the product was new and was still a hot seller?

You're right, this doesn't make sense. That's kind of the point. The reason the price cut took place was because they would miss the target. As I've said, why cut into your profits by a huge amount if you're on track for what you expected?

iPhone sales were in line with Apple's own estimates given ages before the price cut.

From what we do know, we can conclude that iPhone sales were in line with Apple's expectations

You said this four times, but the more you repeat it doesn't make it true. If Apple was par for the course for sales, there's no point in cutting deeply into their profits.