How many units of the iPhone will ship?
I am already on record as saying the iPhone will be a big success. Now, my question is how many units will Apple have to sell for everyone to agree that it is a hit product? Based on this article, I would say that if Apple sells more than 10 million iPhones in fiscal 2008, then it is a certified success.
Is this a reasonable success metric? Should units shipped be higher or lower?
Where are the Vegas bookies when you need them…
No, that’s not fair. You know that Steve is underselling on purpose. Let’s go with what the analysts say as an expected measure of success, or 17M phones. That’s the benchmark I’m confortable with.
Number of units sold seems to be a reasonable metric. I’m not sure about the specific threshold of 10 million, and I’m not sure about the time frame. Those predicting the iPhone will flop acknowledge it will sell a lot of units up front. When does Apple’s fiscal year begin and end?
Apple’s fiscal year 2007 runs from October 1, 2006 to September 29, 2007. See the calendar of events for a tentative schedule of earnings release dates for FY2007.
So FY 2008 would be Oct 2007 through Sept 2008.
I will do some more searching to see if we can find an independent analyst who predicts how many units will be sold.
I think Everything Apple , get a boom and then the revolution like iPod did, comes on. I will bet on that.