Apple Inc. (AAPL)’s latest iPhone has sold out for pre-order at AT&T Inc. (T), Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp. (S) according to the carriers’ websites, signaling customer demand even before it goes on sale in stores tomorrow.
Sprint and Verizon Wireless showed no remaining iPhone 4S stock available for pre-order on their websites. On AT&T’s site iPhone buyers are given a delivery-time estimate of three to four weeks rather than the one to two days, when pre-orders began Oct. 7.
The sellout signals robust demand for the Apple device and should help boost revenue for the wireless carriers in the years ahead, said Roger Entner, an analyst with Recon Analytics in Boston. Apple, based in Cupertino, California, said this week that it hit a new sales record of 1 million iPhones sold in the first day.
“It looks like another blockbuster launch for Apple, only this time with three carriers,” said Entner. Entner estimates that about half of the early iPhone buyers are “Apple aficionados” who buy the new iPhone every year, and the other half are a mix of people upgrading from older smartphones and those new to the category.
The iPhone launch, along with new phones that use Google Inc. (GOOG)’s Android software, should tip the balance to more than half of mobile phone customers using smartphones, Entner said.
“With this iPhone launch, we will have broken through the 50 percent penetration level,” he said in an interview. He estimates smartphone penetration was 43 percent at the end of September.
read more: Olympus Wealth Management
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