Orange
The Storm's a hit, but RIM may miss
November 24, 2008: 3:52 PM ET
Despite the hundreds of customers who queued up outside Verizon (VZ) stores early Friday to buy the Storm -- Research in Motion's hot new smartphone -- the company is likely to miss its subscriber targets for the quarter that ends Nov. 29, according to a report issued Monday by Citigroup (C) analyst Jim Suva.
The Storm, RIM's (RIMM) answer to Apple's (AAPL) iPhone, sold out almost immediately -- and that's the problem, according to Suva.
Further investigation, he says, showed that the stores only received 40 to 100 units each, and that disappointed customers were told they could order online but wouldn't get their Storms until Dec. 15 -- too late to count in RIM's third quarter sales.
The Storm's late release and its limited supply were among several factors that caused Suva to trim his estimate of new subscriptions this quarter from 2.9 million to 2.7 million. He also predicts Q3 earnings to come in at $0.85 per share on sales of $2.85 billion -- well below the Street's consensus of $0.91 EPS on sales of $2.96 billion.
Among the other clouds on RIM's horizon, as Suva sees them:
- Lack of Wi-Fi on the Storm and reviews that were "generally positive, but by no means spectacular."
- The delayed launch of the Blackberry Bold at AT&T (T) and sales that, while "solid," seem to be primarily replacements rather than sales to new subscribers.
- The continued unavailability of the Bold in the United Kingdom, a key European market for RIM.
- The "tepid" response to the Kickstart clamshell phone at T-Mobile (DT), which seems to be more concerned with selling Google (GOOG) G1s than RIM BlackBerries.
- A shift in thinking within corporations, which in today's economic climate are starting to view the BlackBerry as a "nice to have" item rather than a "have to have."
See also BlackBerry Storm: The reviews are in and BlackBerry Storm vs. Apple iPhone.
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Finally, the real iPhone
There's a theory favored by savvy Apple watchers that the first generation iPhone -- greeted with such hoopla last year -- was not actually the real thing.
That iPhone -- the one that hundreds of thousands of Americans queued up to buy for up to $599 apiece, the one that Time magazine named the Invention of the Year, the one that six million people purchased before Apple finally stopped making them in MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jul 9, 2008 7:31 AM ETPosted in: 3G, App Store, Apple, Apple Stores, AT&T, Battery problems, Deferred revenue, Europe, France, Germany, GPS, iPhone, iPhone 3G, O2, Orange, RIM, Rogers, Steve Jobs, T-Mobile, Third Party Apps, U.K., Vodafone -
Britain's Carphone Warehouse runs out of iPhones
Well, that's one way to clear your shelves of excess inventory.
Eight days after O2 and Carphone Warehouse, Apple's U.K. distributors, tried to rid themselves of unsold iPhones by instituting a 100 pound (37%) price cut on the 8GB model, the extra phones have all but disappeared.
On Thursday, Carphone, Europe's largest independent mobile phone retailer, alerted advertisers that the sale had done its work: the 8GB models were gone and would MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Apr 25, 2008 8:09 AM ET -
iPhone: European fire sales spreading to France
Hard on the heels of a 75% price cut in Germany and 100 pounds (37%) off in the U.K. comes a report out of Paris that two high-level executives at Orange, the iPhone's wireless carrier in France, have flown to Cupertino to figure out what to do about the excess inventory piling up on their shelves.
Under a headline that reads "L'échec de l'iPhone pousse Orange et Apple à renégocier" ("The MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Apr 19, 2008 11:07 AM ET -
Fuzzy Math: How many iPhones did Europeans buy?
End-of-year sales figures for Apple's (AAPL) iPhone in Europe are trickling in, but not in any form that can be definitively pieced together.
That latest news comes from Germany, where the head of Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile division said in an online interview Saturday that it had signed on 70,000 customers in the 11 weeks since the device went on sale. (link)
What's not clear is whether that number represents iPhone sales or MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 27, 2008 9:17 AM ET -
iPhones sell like crepes suzette in France
The British and the Germans queued up dutifully for their Apple (AAPL) iPhones, but when the devices finally arrived in Paris last week, the French went nuts.
On day one, France Telecom's Orange division sold 12,000 iPhones, according to Metro International, easily beating T-Mobile's first-day sales in Germany, a country with one third more people (82 million vs. 61 million) and 50 percent more Internet users (52 million vs. 34 million) MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Dec 5, 2007 9:54 AM ET -
France's $956 iPhone
Apple's (AAPL) iPhone goes on sale in France late tonight at select Orange boutiques at prices that look very different from those charged in the U.S. ($399), the U.K. (289 pounds) or Germany (399 euros locked, 999 euros unlocked).
France Telecom, which owns Orange, knew even before it signed its exclusive deal with Apple that it was going to be required to offer customers the option of buying the iPhone with MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 28, 2007 8:19 AM ET -
The $890 iPhone rebate
Apple (AAPL) and T-Mobile may have thought they could choke off the sale of unlocked iPhones in Germany by pricing them high enough -- and 999 euros ($1,485 at today's exchange rate) is certainly pretty steep for a cell phone that ordinarily sells for 399 euros in Europe and $399 in the U.S.
But they probably didn't figure on the competition using that 600 euro ($890) price differential as a crowbar MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 27, 2007 5:20 PM ET -
Paris: City of unlocked iPhones
UPDATE: France Telecom today set its prices for iPhones locked and unlocked. See France's $956 iPhone.
Apple's (AAPL) iPhone goes on sale in France Wednesday night for 399 euros ($593) with a 2-year contract, and although we don't know yet how much France Telecom plans to charge for an iPhone without a contract, we do know that it will be less than 999 euros ($1,485 at today's exchange rates).
That's how much MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 27, 2007 12:04 PM ET -
Europe's $1,478 iPhones
One of the questions left unanswered when Apple (AAPL) finally sealed the deal with Orange to market the iPhone in France -- where it's illegal to sell a phone that's locked to a particular carrier -- was how much customers who wanted to buy the device without a contract would have to pay.
Now we know, thanks to a court in Hamburg, Germany: a premium of 600 euros, or $880, MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Nov 21, 2007 11:24 AM ET
