- There has been much ado made of the fact that pre-orders for the new iPhone 5 have sold out 20 times faster than the iPhone 4S.
- However no one has asked the question: How many iPhone 5s does Apple have on hand to ship on September 21st?
- If that number is much lower than the year before and demand remains the same then of course it will sell out faster.
- The iPhone 5 sold out 60 minutes after ordering went live which looks staggering compared to 22 hours for the iPhone 4S and 20 hours for the iPhone 4. (http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/14/iphone-5-pre-order-sells-out-20x-faster-than-4-and-4s-further-highlighting-apples-dominance/)
- But how many iPhones does Apple have?
- My guess is far fewer than last time.
- This is because the supply chain has ramped up production much later this year than last due to the problem with the yield on producing in-cell touch screens.
- Typically, the supply chain starts to move in July with August running at a very high level, but this year, nothing really started to move before the second half of August.
- So back of the envelope would suggest that Apple had the supply chain running flat out for 2 weeks instead of the more normal 6.
- Taking this to its logical conclusion one would expect that Apple has around 1/3 of the inventory on hand this year compared to last and therefore with demand remaining the same it should have sold out in 3 hours or so.
- 3 hours is still a great result but not quite the mind blowing 60 minutes that has the commentators, fan base and the stock jumping up and down like mad.
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