iPhone 3G Largest CE Launch in History … Until Next iPhone
by John Paczkowski
Posted on July 15, 2008 at 12:00 AM PT
Turns out the hyperbolic press release with which Apple announced the iPhone 3G’s first sales numbers today may have been more of an understatement than overstatement. Because iPhone 3G’s stunning opening weekend may go down in the books as the largest consumer electronics launch ever. “The original 2007 iPhone launch was the largest first-weekend consumer electronics launch in history as measured in inflation-adjusted dollars, garnering somewhere around $150 million in its first weekend on sale,” explains Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe. “That eclipsed the Microsoft (MSFT) XBox 360 ($128 million in the first weekend), Microsoft Windows 95 ($122 million in the first four days), and the Sony Betamax (not even close at $58 million in the first seven months). But Apple just broke its own record. Assuming an average price after carrier subsidy of $433 (two-thirds 8-GByte models, one-third 16-GByte models), Apple (AAPL) just posted approximately $433 million in first weekend of iPhone sales. Said another way, if this had been a movie, it would have broken all box office records for a first weekend opening–by a factor of nearly 3.”
Huh. So perhaps “The Dark Knight” will turn out to be the iPhone 3G of movies.
