Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster today issued a new research report claiming that supplies of the iPhone 5s in Apple's U.S. retail stores have reached "100% availability", showing that his survey of 60 locations revealed full availability of all color/capacity/carrier combinations.
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Based on our own check of 120 stores, supplies are just slightly short of 100%, as we were able to find several locations lacking stock of a few combinations. The most frequently out of stock models were T-Mobile devices, which still posted 98.6% availability according to our survey. AT&T and Verizon each saw only two specific model/location combinations out of stock for 99.8% availability, while we found all Sprint models in stock at all surveyed stores.
Late last week, shipping estimates for the iPhone 5s on Apple's online stores improved to 1-3 business days, further signifying that Apple has essentially reached a balance of supply and demand. Only unlocked SIM-free models remain somewhat constrained following their appearance in the U.S. late last month, with new orders being quoted shipping estimates of 5-7 business days.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)Nope. Waiting for the iPhone 6 which should be ~9 months away. :cool::apple:
You should wait for the 6S, supposed to be way better than the 6. :cool:
You should wait for the 6S, supposed to be way better than the 6. :cool:
Really...? I've heard good things about the 7 and 7S.
"Demand for the new iPhone plummets as stock level rises"
"Apple sales are down, claims anonymous store attendant"
"Did Apple fake small stock to increase demand?"
"Apple fans already waiting for the iPhone 6"
... and so on ...
Hard to tell if you are being serious or not, but since others surely are using that reasoning, I'll respond: it took 2 months just for supply to catch up to the demand. Now Apple can fine tune its supply (ramp it down as needed) to sell most efficiently. They have people whose jobs it is to project demand for the lifecycle of the phones and adjust to how they have been initially selling. Case in point, they ramped down iPhone 5c production when it wasn't selling as well as they'd hoped. Bottom line, I don't think they are worried about phones clogging their shelves.
I was not being serious. iPhone 5S will probably break records for both number of units sold (as compared to any other smartphone), dollar amount of sales revenue, and total profit.
Apple's main issue is that certain parts of the government consider their smartphone position so dominant that it raises anti-trust issues. There is a small but growing movement that is going to start pushing for Apple to be broken up. You aren't hearing about this now, but you will in a few years if general trends continue. Those PC sales are going to drop off a cliff in two years, the android devices aren't being actually used as smartphones, and if iOS continues to dominate the tablet market with the tablet market becoming the bulk of the computer market, Apple is going to have a truly dominant position. At least in the U.S. that seems to be where we are going.