iPhone X sold out within minutes: A redemption for Apple?
Amid dwindling sales and falling stocks, Apple might have hit gold with its latest offering: the new iPhone X, costing around Rs. 1L, was sold out within minutes of opening pre-orders. "Off the charts" demand had pushed delivery times to upto six weeks. Some even took to eBay to resell their pre-order confirmations for abnormally-high amounts! Does this mean Apple has regained steady ground?
All about the new iPhone X
The iPhone X was unveiled on September 12. The stainless steel and glass device comes with an edge-to-edge 5.8-inch OLED display with 2436x1125 pixel resolution. There is no home button. The side button will launch Siri. The Truedepth camera system will work even in the dark. It comes with FaceID, a major leap in technology, which will work on a real-time basis.
In India, the device sold like wildfire
In India, the 64GB variant was selling for Rs. 89,000, and the 256GB version for Rs. 1,02,000. Both Flipkart and Amazon had cashback offers, exchanges and discounts of up to Rs. 52,000. Within minutes of opening pre-orders, the device was sold out on both the platforms. However, there's no information on how many units were made available.
eBay listings went up to as much as Rs. 39L!
Some lucky ones who managed to successfully pre-order took to eBay to sell them for high bids. At least one was selling for a whopping $60,000 (Rs. 38,93,000)! But there were a few catches: there was no way to verify if the seller had indeed got a pre-order confirmation, or if they would ship their devices to the new buyers after delivery.
Stocks rose by nearly 3 per cent
Apple's shares, which had been steadily declining since a month, increased almost 3% in response. Earlier, shares had dropped amid speculations about dampened demand for the iPhone 8. It seemed to be competing with last year's iPhone 7 and the then-upcoming iPhone X.
Nonetheless, there are rumors about Apple's lacking production capacity
Amid sky-high interest, there's some concern too. Analysts have warned production of the new iPhone X is below targets. Rumors say Apple is selling only 2-3mn units in the first phase. One issue in production, they say, is the difficulty in producing its TrueDepth camera mechanism, which lets users unlock the device through Face ID: advanced cameras and sensors imply a delicate production process.
Does this actually mean heightened demand for Apple's newest product?
Not necessarily. For one, Apple hasn't announced how many units it is selling. Compared to the rumored 2-3mn units of the iPhone X, the iPhone 6 sold 10mn units in the first weekend after release. Production issues are likely to complicate matters for the company. Bloomberg reported that it was diluting the advanced facial recognition accuracy to hasten manufacturing, but Apple has denied it.
A chance for Apple to redeem itself
Still, it can only mean good news for the brand, which has lost much ground in the market. In a recent survey of 1,520 people, Apple was ranked last after Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft in terms of how much customers enjoyed their products. Apple has a lot at stake, and much depends on whether it's able to supply the iPhone X on time.
