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iPhone Turning Five Years Old with 250 Million Units Sold, $150 Billion in Revenue

Wednesday June 27, 2012 7:40 am PDT by Eric Slivka
While Apple first showed off the original iPhone at Macworld San Francisco in January 2007, the device did not launch until six months later, officially arriving on June 29, 2007. With the iPhone's fifth birthday coming later this week, research firm Strategy Analytics published a brief press release noting that Apple has now sold 250 million iPhones that have generated roughly $150 billion in revenue for the company over the product's lifetime.
According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, Apple has generated US$150 billion of cumulative revenues for its iPhone family in the first five years since launch in June 2007. A quarter of a billion iPhones have been shipped cumulatively worldwide.

Neil Shah, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, said, “Apple’s first iPhone was launched commercially in the United States on June 29, 2007. Between June 2007 and June 2012, we estimate the iPhone family of models has generated US$150 billion of cumulative revenues worldwide for Apple. This is an impressive achievement and it illustrates just how popular the iPhone has become during the past five years.”

With iPhone sales continuing to accelerate, more than 100 million of those unit sales have come during the past year. The iPhone 4S has marked a significant part of the surge, with over 35 million units sold in each of the past two quarters.

Business Insider summarizes some of the iPhone's impact on business, noting that the device now generates more quarterly revenue than Microsoft's entire business, generates more profit than GE, Microsoft, or Google, and has remade the technology industry with its dominating position.
[ 188 comments ]


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Small White Car
83 months ago
Happy birthday, iPhone.

The 1st gen is heading off to kindergarten this fall. They grow up so fast. :sniff:
Rating: 36 Votes
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Mad Mac Maniac
83 months ago
wow.. those images remind me of just how amazed I was when the iPhone was released. It seemed so revolutionary...

The thing that really sticks in my mind was when Steve Jobs used Maps to find local starbucks and then called by simply tapping the number... Something we take so for granted now, but at the time I was like :eek:
Rating: 35 Votes
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phillipduran
83 months ago
Ballmer: iPhone has "no chance" of gaining significant market share
Rating: 32 Votes
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jav6454
83 months ago
I still have my original iPhone and it still works
Rating: 27 Votes
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1080p
83 months ago
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=qycUOENFIBs
Steve Balmer laughing at the iPhone after it was unveiled.
Rating: 22 Votes
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HarryKeogh
83 months ago
My first was the 3G.

Then for some insane reason I got a Droid X.

Back with a 4S. Never going back to Android.

Happy birthday, inanimate object. I love you!
Rating: 21 Votes
Avatar
_Refurbished_
83 months ago
I went back and watched the original iPhone keynote. It's amazing how much we take for granted in only five years since the iPhone's debut. The crowd went crazy when Steve "swiped to unlock". It's such a basic feature today, but in 2007, it was revolutionary.

We'll never forget you Steve. :apple:
Rating: 19 Votes
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kniemann
83 months ago
Back in 2008, when I bought my iPhone 3G for $200 with a $30 data plan, my friends laughed at me. Boy they were on the wrong side of history..
Rating: 16 Votes
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1080p
83 months ago

Just think at its current rate Android (900k+ a day) sells more in 1 year than iphone has in 5 years. Well done Google.


Uh.... you just compared an OS to a phone. Furthermore... you compared an OS that Google give away for FREE to a phone that has a high profit margin for Apple.

Who is making more money in this comparison?

Also... let's compare Apples to Apples (no pun intended).

Name one Android phone... 1 model that sells as many as iPhone 4S (1 model) like Apple sells? Nothing comes close!

Sure... Android the OS is everywhere... more people use Android than iOS. But Apple isn't trying to make money from their OS. It's the giveaway. They make money from selling the phones that the OS sits on.
Rating: 13 Votes
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Lordskelic
83 months ago
In just five years, look how different the cell phone market is. It's really crazy how fast technology changes!
Rating: 12 Votes

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