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Gadget-lovers began queuing days in advance, there were breathless reports of phone-store shelves being swept clean, and the high demand for activations appeared to overwhelm the telecoms provider's systems, but now we have the first real numbers for sales of the iPhone - and they are a disappointment.
AT&T, the telecoms company with which Apple has teamed up to offer its much-hyped new iPod-cum-mobile phone, revealed that it activated 146,000 of the devices in the first two days - the last two days of June.
The number was mentioned as an aside in AT&T's financial results for the second quarter of the year, but it caused an immediate reaction on the stock market, where Apple shares plunged 5 per cent.
Analysts had believed US sales of the iPhone that first weekend had been anything from 300,000 to 700,000. Even allowing that some iPhones may not have been immediately activated - either due to glitches at AT&T or because they were being purchased for resale on eBay - it seems clear that Wall Street had been taken in by the hype surrounding the product's launch.
By lunchtime, Apple shares had recovered a little to trade at US$139.78 ($173.55) down 2.7 per cent.
Apple has set a target of winning 1 per cent of the US mobile phone market in the first year, implying iPhone sales of 10 million worldwide, and it is yet to put the phone on sale in most countries.
Apple provides its own update this week, when it reports its second-quarter financial results.
Gene Munster, a Piper Jaffray analyst, admitted that the early iPhone sales figure was a disappointment. Others said poor sales of the US$500 and US$600 devices could become a running theme.
- INDEPENDENT
