The post-mortem of Verizon Wireless’ iPhone pre-sales has begun. The carrier sold as many as 100,000 iPhone 4 handsets in the first 17 hours, one analyst projects. The early ‘sold-out’ sign “affirms the strong pent-up demand for hte Verizon iPhone, and bodes well for initial sell-through,” RBC Capital analyst Mike Abramsky told clients Friday.
The carrier could sell 2.9 million iPhones by March and 11.6 million Apple handsets for all of 2011, according to Susquehanna analyst Jeff Fidicaro.
The analyst comments appear to mirror an earlier statement by Verizon. “In just our first two hours, we had already sold more phones than any first day launch in our history,” said Verizon Wireless president and CEO Dan Mead Friday morning. The carrier temporarily halted pre-sales at 8pm Thursday, after the company sold out its initial iPhone inventory. Pre-orders began at 3 am Thursday.
“Yesterday’s launch set the pace for next week when we open up sales to everyone across America,” Mead added. On Feb. 10 at 7 am, the Verizon handset will go on sales online, along with the carrier’s 2,000 stores, Apple locations, Best Buy, and select Wal-Mart retailers.
[Fortune]
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
8 responses to “Analyst: Verizon Sold 100,000 iPhones in First 17 Hours”
Competitions of phone companies are very high. More purchasers mean much growth in their investments. Phone companies do offer some special services just to attract more users.