Gene Munster, Voice of Reason

So there’s this silly pseudo-scandal surrounding the gap between the number of iPhones Apple has reported as sold and the number of iPhones AT&T has reported as activated, based on a theory from analyst Toni Sacconaghi that there are too many iPhones sitting in inventory on AT&T (and, in Europe, other carriers’) retail stores. I.e. that Apple has “stuffed the channel”, which is the retail sales equivalent of padding one’s underwear or bra.

Gene Munster does the math that shows that, given an inventory of 500,000 phones and Apple’s normal five-week channel inventory, it comes out to 100,000 iPhones per week — which is less than the pace at which the iPhone has actually been selling to date. In other words, several hundred thousand iPhones in inventory is exactly what we should expect.

★ Sunday, 27 January 2008