He is clearly not alone. According to a number of items in today’s papers, the iPhone remains as elusive in some locales as a Toronto Maple Leafs playoff berth. (Sorry.) For example, in today’s Chicago Sun Times, Marketing Columnist Lewis Lazare
writes that
Nearly two weeks after the launch, Apple's (
News -
Alert) Web site Tuesday night showed very spotty availability for Wednesday at Apple stores in the metro Chicago market. The flagship North Michigan Avenue store had only two of the three models of the phone, and most of the stores had none.
PC World had a
report that the iPhone 3G was attracting bids of nearly $2,500 on eBay (
News -
Alert).
The bidding for a 16G-byte iPhone 3G on eBay is exceeding $1,000, with one bid ending at $2,325. The average 8G-byte iPhone 3G bid is reaching the $800 to $900 range.
However things are finally looking up.
According to Top Muffin’s iPhone 3G
Availability Tracker — which tracks which stores have inventory based on Apple’s own information — as of 12:45pm today, July 24th there were quite a few units available for purchase at Apple stores throughout the United States.
- 8 GB Black 3G iPhones were available at 81 of 188 stores (43%)
- 16 GB White 3G iPhones were available at 129 of 188 stores (69%)
- 16 GB Black 3G iPhones were available at 71 of 188 stores (38%)
The Apple Store closest to TMC, in Stamford, CT showed availability for one of the three models, the 16GB white version.
If Rich really wants a black one, I can pop in to one by my house. Apparently the Apple Store in the Palisades Mall in West Nyack, NY shows all three versions in stock.
Writing for Atlantic-ACM, analyst Fedor Smith
points out that "the device currently being out of stock at most Apple and AT&T (
News -
Alert) stores will likely increase demand rather than diminish it."
In fact, Smith writes that "the first generation iPhone took two-and-a-half months to sell one million units—a milestone the iPhone 3G achieved in only three days."
It’s likely the case that a much expanded market (21 countries for the iPhone 3G launch versus just the U.S.A. for the first iPhone) helped Apple make their numbers.
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Greg Galitzine (
News -
Alert) is editorial director of TMCnet. To read more of Greg’s articles, please visit his
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