Om on Apple


Apple’s Q4 numbers are astounding, and Jobs’ Babe Ruth quote is priceless.

Revenue: 49% higher, which represents 39% percent of the adjusted total quarterly revenues. Jobs put the number at $4.6 billion. Income is 115% higher.

Given those revenue numbers, Steve Jobs claims they’d become the 3rd largest mobile phone supplier in revenue, after Nokia and Samsung. Thoughts anyone? I’d love to know if that’s accurate.

Volume: Apple is on track to meet/exceed their goal of 10 million iPhones for the year.

Distribution: Expanded number of countries carrying iPhone from 6 to 51. There are 3,100 points of sale in U.S and more than 30,000 worldwide.

Steve Jobs I: “The traditional game in the phone market has been to produce a voice phone in a hundred different varieties,” Jobs replied to a question about how he can play in the market with one version of the device. Jobs said that software (and user experience) are Apple’s current and future strategy. “From everything I heard, Babe Ruth had only one home run; he just kept hitting it over and over again.”

Steve Jobs II: “If this isn’t stunning I don’t know what is. We sold more phones than RIM” … Even more remarkable: measured by revenue, Apple has become the 3rd largest mobile phone supplier, after Nokia and Samsung. Sony No. 4, LG No. 5. “Both of these things are amazing feats. But who knows what the future will be given the world wide market slowdown? Not bad for being in the market for only 15 months.”

Om Malik wrote a great summary of 7 Real Reasons Why iPhone Is a Smash Hit.

1. Since its launch on July 11, Apple sold 6.892 million 3G iPhones in the quarter, bringing the total number of iPhones sold so far to 12.992 million. Many of the new phones were sold to first-time buyers.
   
   
2. Apple recognized $806 million in iPhone-related revenues for the quarter.
   
   
3. If Apple didn’t defer the iPhone revenue, the iPhone sales would have accounted for about 39 percent of the adjusted total quarterly revenues. Jobs put the number at $4.6 billion.
   
   
4. The iPhone will be sold in 70 countries by end of this year. It is currently sold in 51 countries.
   
   
5. By revenues, Apple is now the 3rd largest mobile phone maker behind Nokia and Samsung, ahead of Sony & LG Electronics. Samsung had revenues of $5.9 billion and it seems beatable.
   
   
6. iPhone is outselling RIM. Jobs kept hammering on that point during the conference call.
   
   
7. Apple says that in the 102 days since the iPhone Apps store opened, nearly 200 million iPhone apps have been downloaded. There are about 5500 apps available on the iPhone Apps store.

For the truly curious/geeky, there’s a great discussion going on below the article in the comments.

Previous articles on i-boy about the iPhone:
The App in Apple (July 2008)
Insught on the iPhone (April 2008)

I’ll look around for something on Google Android next.