Great news folks, the moment we've all been waiting for is finally here! Tim Cook has just taken the stage in Cupertino, meaning Apple's iPhone event has begun and we are just moments away from seeing the new smartphone.
As usual, the CEO is getting things started this morning by going over some significant sales numbers and achievements for the company over the past year. And also as usual, we're collecting and posting them for you after the fold...
Although Apple's much-awaited September 10 announcement remains days away, analysts are already weighing the potential benefit for the all-important fourth quarter. Can Apple get a much-needed bump in end of the year sales by launching the upgraded iPhone 5S and the new iPhone 5C, as well as potential distribution deals in China and Japan?
At the heart of new estimates for the September quarter is Apple's ability to quickly announce, then begin sales of the new hardware. Lucky for Apple, before becoming CEO, Tim Cook was the iPhone maker's supply chain maestro...
It's believed that with strong competition from Samsung and other handset makers, the iPhone isn't as big of a draw for consumers as it once was. Some carriers have even stopped offering the phone, figuring it's no longer worth the hassle.
But ask providers like T-Mobile or China Telecom, and it's a completely different story. T-Mobile just posted its strongest consumer growth in 4 years last quarter on the back of its iPhone launch, and China Telecom is seeing similar results...
Last night, T-Mobile announced its financials for its second quarter, and the numbers were fantastic. The carrier added more than 1 million new subscribers, and sold over 4 million smartphones during the 3-month period.
In the press release, the company wouldn't say how many of those 4 million phones were iPhones, only that the handset made up about 29% of their sales. During the conference call, though, it was much more forthcoming...
T-Mobile US announced its financials for its second quarter last night, and the results are very impressive. Chock it up to finally landing the iPhone, the new 'Un-carrier' strategy—whatever it's doing, it's working. The carrier posted its strongest customer growth in 4 years.
In fact, believe it or not, T-Mobile led the US wireless industry in the second quarter, adding 685,000 branded postpaid phones and 1.1 million customers altogether. It also sold 4.3 million smartphones during the 3-month period, a year-over-year increase of 71 percent...
We've often written about calls for Apple to produce a low-cost iPhone suitable for emerging markets, such as China and India. Now comes even more evidence for such a move as China and India are among the world's top three smartphone markets and are estimated to become the leading markets for smartphones by 2018.
Even more worrisome is Apple's declining share of those markets. In China, Apple's most important market, the iPhone fell from fifth place to seventh as local smartphone makers Huawei and Xiaomi grab more share. Meanwhile, in India, rival Samsung has more than a third of the smartphone market, which Apple has heavily invested in terms of marketing resources and newly-designed payment options...
Tablet sales slowed during the second quarter, falling 9.7 percent to 45.1 million units, according to IDC researchers Monday. Because interest in tablets rises and falls with Apple's iPad, the slowdown in sales during the second quarter was attributed to the lack of a new iPad device being introduced by Apple.
In the horserace between Apple and Samsung (which will unveil a next-gen Note phablet on September 4), the iPad remains the top-selling tablet, although growth fell 14.1 percent on shipments of 14.6 million iPads, down from 19.5 million during the first quarter of 2013, IDC announced Monday. No. 2 Samsung also saw tablet shipments slow to 8.1 million units, down from 8.6 million devices during the previous quarter, though the South Korean vendor saw a 277 percent annual growth in tablet shipments...
Even if it doesn't look like it on paper, this has been a big year for T-Mobile. Since January, the company has launched its LTE network, unveiled new plans, and has managed to get the attention of the larger carriers with its new 'Jump' device upgrade program.
But perhaps the biggest thing that happened to T-Mobile this year was that it finally inked an iPhone deal. Until March, it was the only major US carrier not offering the handset. And according to a new study, landing it likely saved them over 300,000 customers...
Leap Wireless held its quarterly earnings call yesterday. And aside from losing some 360,000 subscribers to 'increased competition,' and droopy revenues, its numbers actually look pretty good. Smartphone sales are up, ARPU is up, and churn is down.
But the number that really interests us is that the company's iPhone sales were up during the quarter. In fact, Leap's CFO Perley McBride said during the call that the carrier won't have to purchase $100 million in unsold iPhones as it originally thought...
Steve Ballmer sounded pretty confident when his company debuted the Surface tablet last fall. At one point, he even said "I don’t think anybody has done a product that is the product that I see customers wanting," implying that Microsoft had.
But I think by now, it's pretty clear that's not the case. Not only did the software giant have to eat $900 million in unsold Surfaces last quarter, but estimates based on a new SEC filing suggest that it's only sold 1.7 million of them since launch...
In January of this year, market research firm BCN posted a report claiming that the Nexus 7 outsold the iPad mini in Japan during the holidays. Google's tablet accounted for 44.4% of all tablets sold in the study's 2,400 stores during the period, besting Apple (40.1% ) for the first time.
Fast forward to last week, when Google unveiled the new Nexus 7. Google's SVP, and leader of the Android team, Sundar Pichai, took the stage and began rattling off statistics about the platform. And of course he referred to the BCN report, which we have since learned is very misleading...
Sprint has released its financials for its second quarter of 2013, and once again the carrier saw strong smartphone sales. According to the company, smartphones accounted for some 86% of its postpaid handset mix, and approximately 1.4 million of them were iPhones.
But not all of the numbers fell in Sprint's favor. The carrier lost nearly 2 million subscribers during the quarter, due in large part to the recent shutdown of its Nextel network. And it also posted a staggering $874 million operating loss due to charges related to the closure...