Thursday, 27 September 2012

Apple: One Year After Steve Jobs’ Death, iPhone Sales Disappoint Wall Street

It's time to look again to the future. But the fundamental question is: What if Jobs already introduced all of Apple’s breakthrough products?

Only Apple could sell 5 million iPhones in three days and still disappoint Wall Street’s number crunchers. The Cupertino-based cash machine’s new mobile phone debuted last Friday, and consumers lined up around the block — around the world — to purchase the new device. In the SoHo neighborhood of New York City on Friday, a line more than 100 deep snaked around the corner at noon. “The iPhone 5 didn’t make my iPhone obsolete,” a New York tech reporter remarked to me. (She was granted anonymity because she is not authorized to speak to the press.) “All the people who are upgrading on the first weekend are cell-phone junkies.”
She’s right. The people who line up overnight with camping gear and sleeping bags days in advance to buy new Apple products are fanatics – or what we would call fanboys. They must have the newest device as soon as possible. Not me: I’m only now learning how to use an iPad, thanks to a friend’s instructions.
Apple has reeled off one of the most profitable runs in the history of capitalism. This company, founded by a Reed College dropout and a Bay Area geek-genius, is sitting on over $100 billion cash. For perspective, that’s $30 billion more than New York City’s annual budget.


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