You do have to marvel at the Apple machine.
They reported to the market yesterday that they have taken 600,000 pre-orders for the iPhone 4.
Now, assuming that Apple will net at least 500 pounds per device (or roughly 740 dollars), that equates to 600,000 x 740 = $444,000,000.
Shit.
Almost half a billion dollars. In a SINGLE day!
If you go further and assume that 30% of people ordered the 32GB version, then the figure gets to $470m. Simply ridiculously impressive. So whilst Nokia is having a pretty bad quarter, Apple is, one imagines, having a pretty good time of it.
Very, very impressive, Apple.
As @tomiahonen points out, most of these are likely to be 2G AT&T customers due an upgrade.
So a very large chunk of that 1/2Bn is coming out of the AT&T (or O2) CFO's back pocket.
Whereas Call Of Duty 2: Modern Warfare sold an estimated $330M on day 1 – all of that coming direct from consumer's pockets. Apple are not the only firm making day-1 desirous goods.
What this shows is the confidence consumers have that the next iPhone will be that much better than the last that it's worth another 2 year commit, sight unseen (well, unfondled).
Not wanting to be a rotten spoil sport 🙂 but as Mike42 implies above (below?) how much of this is expanding the iPhone platform, and how much is upgrading existing iPhone owners who had a WELL below par handset (which was below average spec the day it was released)?
I'd like to see the figures in a few months time, of what effect the iPhone 4 had on the platform growth rate. I'd be surprised if it was much different than before, given Apple's horrrrrrrrendous prices.
And here's a salutary tale for us all 😉 http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apple
I wonder whether it matters in terms of keeping the cash flowing into the Apple bank accounts. It's very, very impressive, especially given it's just one day!
Of course it doesn't matter. Those are enviable numbers no matter what way you slice it.