While the iPhone helped attract a record number of new AT&T subscribers during the final quarter of 2007, the device is apparently not doing as well as Apple had hoped overseas.
According to Digitimes, the company has lowered its projected shipments of iPhones from 2 million to around 1-1.2 million units for the second fiscal quarter, which will end March 2008. Quoting various component suppliers in Taiwan, the news was originally reported in the Economic Daily News. The news site said that because sales of iPhones in Europe have been consistently lower than expected, Apple chose to slash its shipment projections for the second quarter.
That apparently doesn't affect sales targets for the end of the year, however. Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer reaffirmed on Tuesday that the company "felt confident" about selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008.
It's still unclear how well the device is selling in Europe. O2 claimed it was on track to sell 200,000 iPhones by early January -- in line with its Nov. 9 launch expectations. Some analyst firms, like Gartner, even said that target was conservative, believing the number will be up around the 400,000 mark. In Germany, the only news we've heard is that Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile sold 10,000 iPhones during the first day of sales. France Telecom's Orange recently confirmed it sold 70,000 iPhones in the first month, which was lower than CEO Didier Lombard's original expectations. He had projected selling 100,000 iPhones before the end of the year.
[Via DigiTimes]
