During yesterday's conference call, Apple revealed that iPhone was responsible for 39% of the company's revenues in Q4 2008. Due to Apple's decision to report iPhone earnings as subscription revenue over 24 months, however, these numbers are not reflected in the $1.14 billion net profit and $7.9 billion in revenue reported yesterday. If they had been included, this would represent an additional $3.8 billion in revenue and an additional $1.3 billion in net income.
As noted by many, the size of this number is remarkable for a product that has been on the market for only 15 months. Steve Jobs highlighted the significance of the numbers by putting Apple's iPhone sales into perspective:
- Apple sold more iPhones than RIM sold Blackberries in Q4 2008
- In terms of revenue, Apple is now #3 amongst mobile phone vendors behind Nokia and Samsung and beating out Sony Ericsson which falls at #4.
When questioned about Apple's plans for the future in face of increasing iPhone competition, Jobs suggested that they would continue to aggressively price the iPhone and make ongoing improvements:
Well, I think we have to be the best and I think we have to not leave a price umbrella underneath us, and we are working very hard to fulfill both of those goals.
