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Did The Apple (AAPL) iPhone Sell Too Many Or Not Enough

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Most media and analysts said that Apple (AAPL) sold over 500,000 iPhones and that the figure showed high than expected demand. TheStreet.com writes that Apple’s own goal was one million units and that the product launch was a bust.

Due to the "poor" launch, stocks in company’s like Sprint (S) rose late last week.

But, the theories about what early sales of the iPhone mean are wrong, and it will be several quarters until the effect of the handset is really known.

Sprint, for example, has problems of its own, well beyond the iPhone. It could loss a million customers to the iPhone this year, but if its could improve its integration with NexTel and upgrade customer service, it might not matter. If the company’s planned roll-out of a national WiMax network is an early success, the iPhone will hardly be an issue.

The early sales of the iPhone will also be limited because it does not work on AT&T’s (T) 3G network. Early adopters, a phrase coined by out-of-work marketing executives, may buy the new handset with the substandard network, But, most smart mainstream customers will wait. And, that will allow companies like Nokia (NOK) and Sony Ericsson to get new products to market to compete with the Apple product.

Come back at the end of Q1 2008, and maybe the market will have some useful data.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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