Analysts for investment bank Piper Jaffray recently spent more time tracking unit sales at Apple Inc.'s retail stores and reported Thursday that their observations indicate that as many as 10 percent of the iPhones sold by the stores during the month of September were being purchased with the intention to be resold unlocked.
The analyst said this trend was especially noticeable in the New York City stores, where one Apple employee acknowledged that customers were buying five iPhones per store visit in order to turn around and resell them unlocked.
"At one point during the visit, the store sold out of iPhones," he added. "Judging from our checks, as much as 10 percent of the iPhones sold in September were purchased with the intention to be resold unlocked."
Munster went on to note that on September 27th Apple released iPhone software version 1.1.1, which rendered most of the unlocked phones inoperable and in doing so effectively minimized the market for unlocked iPhones. Just prior to this move, however, he said that iPhone sales at Apple retail stores had stabilized at an approximate 56 percent increase to the rates witnessed just prior to the handset's significant $200 price cut on September 5th.
Meanwhile, the analyst and his team were also tracking unit sales of Macs and iPods at the company-owned stores.
Since his last round of checks in the July and August timeframe, Mac momentum appeared to have slowed some 39 percent. But this "makes sense," he said, given the passing of the strong education-related shopping season in August. He continues to expect Apple to report September quarter Mac sales of approximately 2.0 million to 2.1 million versus the Street's consensus of 1.95 million.
While Munster did not have data from August with which to compare his September iPod checks, he was able to provide some observations on the breakdown models.
"Of the iPods we counted, 39 percent were nanos, 36 percent touches, 16 percent shuffles, and 9 percent classics," he wrote. "We continue to believe iPods are tracking to the Street consensus in September of 10.6 million [units]."
The Piper Jaffray analyst maintained his "Outperform" rating and $211 price target on shares of Apple.
44 Comments
Umm... could this be because people are waiting for Leopard also?!?!
Some companies are using iPhones as employee bonuses - did Piper Jaffray take that into account too. Purchasing 5 phones does not absolutely mean you will be unlocking them and reselling them. Though I do believe a significant portion of those sales probably are.
"In late September we spent 12 hours counting iPhone, iPod and Mac sales in Apple stores across the country," analyst Gene Munster wrote in a research note to clients. "During our store checks we noticed many people buying iPhones in the maximum 5 per customer allotments, which we believe were being purchased to be unlocked and operated on carriers other than AT&T."
12 hours is hardly a representative sample for statistics - isn't it ?
The fact that so many iPhones were being bought just to be unlocked shows that...
Holy crap, there's a market for unlocked iPhones!
I hope Apple eventually realizes this and starts giving us a choice. If they make it unlocked, most people will probably still go with AT&T, since it's so convenient to sign up through iTunes and all. But when they travel, they'll have the convenience of using other sim cards.
There's also those people who are already on another US GSM carrier and don't want to switch. There's yet another sale for Apple. So what if they don't get the revenue from AT&T for that phone? An iPhone sale + no additional revenue is still more money than no iPhone sale.
There's also those people who are already on another US GSM carrier and don't want to switch. There's yet another sale for Apple. So what if they don't get the revenue from AT&T for that phone? An iPhone sale + no additional revenue is still more money than no iPhone sale.
There's only one other major GSM carrier in the US. I would expect that most unlocked phones are going to people in other countries.