Apple iPhone figures disappoint

gallery

Figures released by AT&T showing that initial subscriber numbers for Apple's iPhone were below analyst estimates have gone down badly with investors.

Apple's shares dropped four per cent in yesterday's late trading, off $5.70 to $138.02 on Nasdaq after AT&T, the exclusive service provider for iPhone in the US, said it signed up only 146,000 iPhone customers as subscribers in the first two days of iPhone sales, well below analyst estimates for sales.

With Apple's official quarterly results due out this evening, the news comes at a bad time for the company, which despite reports of security issues affecting the device, was hoping for a positive market reaction to its first set of figures to include iPhone sales.

Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves said that while iPhone sales figures for coming months would be more telling than the first few days, AT&T's number had disappointed investors as some analysts estimated sales " north of 500,000."

Hargreaves had himself estimated 400,000 iPhone sales for the first two days, he said.

"The difference (between sales and activations) is going to be what was sold on eBay or activations that didn't happen immediately. There were some problems with activations but from what we heard it was minimal," the analyst said.

Apple and AT&T had attracted long lines of gadget enthusiasts to their stores when the much-hyped iPhone first went on sale in the evening of 29 June.

Mobile phone news, reviews, themes and downloads at Know Your Mobile

Email to a friend

Print this page