Apple posted some very healthy results recently, up until the end of June, but even a couple of days can make a difference. When the iPhone went on sale on June 29, it managed to shift 270,000 units in its first 30 hours, before the financial quarter ended. This is lower than some optimistic first weekend analyst estimates but it’s hard to deny that 270,000 sales of a £300 phone is still impressive.
Apple went on to say that it plans to top 1 million sales by the end of the next financial quarter in September – that’s 730,000 between July 1 and September 30 at a rate of 8,000 a day. To put it in context, the iPod took 21 months to sell its first million units.
However, to hit its ambitious 10 million sales target by the end of 2008 will mean ramping that up to around 27,000 units a day. Even with a European launch at the end of this year it’s going to be tight.
