So iPhone reached 11.6 million unit sales in past 12 months

The numbers are in. Apple says it has sold 6.9 million of the newer 3G iPhone. When we add the last four quarters of sales of the original iPhone (which totalled 6.1 million, but 1.4 million of those were in the last two quarters of Apple Fiscal Year 2007) we get a total of 11.6 million iPhones sold in the past 12 months.

Good result, Apple. It fits well with our original forecast, and also fits with the assumptions we made right after the iPhone was announced, that Apple could only reach this level of sales with some severe cuts to the profitability of the iPhone. Obviously by cutting the price down by two thirds - Apple did resort to severe price cuts and thus cuts to its profitablity to reach this.

I noticed the early press were reporting that Apple says it has beat the "market leader RIM/Blackberry" this past quarter. That is very misleading Apple propaganda, however. RIM and the Blackberry are not the direct smartphone rival to the iPhone (except perhaps in the USA, which represents only 8% of the world's mobile phone market). First, for the past full year, RIM sold over 20 million Blackberries - so to celebrate their one new model, and its one good quarter of sales is certainly a misleading statement, when over the past year RIM has sold about twice as many smarthphones as Apple.

But the real rival to the iPhone is the Nokia N-Series (and E-Series) smartphones. They sold about 80 milloin units this past quarter. So Apple did not sell better than the market leader, in fact Nokia smartphones outsold Apple by a ratio of 12 to 1..  Sorry Apple, lets tell the truth next time, ok?

But yes, good result by the novice handset maker. Selling 11.6 million mobile phones in one year puts them around the ranking of about 10th to 12th largest maker in the world. Out of all mobile phones sold this year, it is of course less than one percent. But out of all smartphones, Apple has now about 6% market share, and that is a very impressive debut for the new smartphone maker. Lets see Apple now grow this strongly for the next year.

For those who want my more considered views, anticipating this level of sales over a week ago, you might want to read my longer blog putting the 10 million annual sales level in context.

Comments

[mark]

Tomi, I know that you know quite a lot about the cellular industry, but I disagree that Apple cut profitability much with the iPhone 3G. Go do the numbers. Apple's deferred revenue line includes both iPhone and AppleTV. If we agree that AppleTV sales are negligible (at most 2% of the the deferred revenue; in today's analyst conference call- Jobs says "I don't think anyone has succeeded at it", and he presumably is including the AppleTV); then when I do the numbers, it works out that Apple generated about $4.3B selling 6.892M iPhones (or ASP of $624 upfront).

Regardless, on that conference call, Jobs openly says Apple recorded $4.6B in phone revenues selling those 6.892M iPhones this quarter, or ASP of $667. (It's possible the difference between my number and his is the AppStore sales.) In any case, how much additional carrier revenue (amortized over 24 months) did you think Apple was getting with the original $499 iPhone?

By the way, based on Netapplications iPhone daily browser share tracking numbers (see http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?sample=17&qprid=42&qpcustom=iPhone) relative to what those numbers were on the week of July 5th, I forecasted 7M iPhone 3G sales. I know I need to make an adjustment for channel fill, but those browser share numbers seem like they can be a very useful tool.

[mark]

One more point: On the conference call, Jobs reported that, measured by revenue, Apple has become the world's 3rd largest mobile phone supplier:
1. Nokia, $12.7b
2. Samsung, $5.9b
3. Apple, $4.6b
4. Sony/Ericsson , $4.2b
5. LG, $3.4b
6. Moto, $3.2b
7. RIM, $2.1b
(I don't know the source of Apple's numbers and have not checked if they are accurate.)

By the way, Apple's RIM comment boast was payback for how RIM, in its conference calls over this past year, has consistently refused to acknowledge (even when questioned directly by analysts) the impact of Apple's iPhone on its revenue. Even analysts have written that this refusal is comical.

[alex]

Jobs also added that he doesn't know whether this strong quatertly position (eg. #3 in revenue share) is sustainable.
A fairer comparison at this point would be over last 12 months as Tomi did for unit sales.

While unit sales comparisons maybe best reflect the consumer view of the competition, revenue share and profitability comparison are more important business measures.

Also important that those $4.6b iPhone revenue are based on subscription accouning (over 24 months). Apple's non-GAAP revenues, which account sales as other phone vendors do, are $3.8b higher.
Neglecting AppleTV (the only other product where Apple uses subscription accounting), this yields about $8.4b iPhone revenue in Q3 - compared with Nokia's $12.7b.