Making a big call for the iPhone X
Apple’s iPhone X went on sale as the company scrambles to meet demand.
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple’s iPhone X went on sale Friday, as the company scrambles to meet demand for a marquee device that sports a lush screen, facialrecognition skills and a $1,000 price tag .
Most analysts have predicted Apple won’t be able to catch up with demand until early next year.
But the company is optimistic. “As we approach the holiday season, we expect it to be our biggest quarter ever,” CEO Tim Cook told Wall Street analysts Thursday. He added that the company is increasing its iPhone X production capacity every week.
Apple is now giving delivery times of three to four weeks, down from five to six weeks, for those ordering online. Lines formed outside stores in New York; Chicago; Hong Kong; Milan, Italy; and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, among others, as customers came to pick up orders or to grab one of the limited numbers available for same-day sales Friday.
Apple had said Thursday that iPhone sales rose 3 percent, to 46.7 million, in the July-September quarter, a period that saw the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus come out in the final weeks. Sales could have been higher if many customers hadn’t been waiting for the iPhone X.
As with recent quarters, one of the main sources of Apple’s growth is coming from its services, which are anchored by an app store that feeds the iPhone and other devices.
Revenue in that division surged 34 percent to $8.5 billion during the JulySeptember period. All told, Apple earned $10.7 billion on revenue of $52.6 billion, compared with a $9 billion profit on revenue of $46.9 billion a year earlier.
Nonetheless, the justended quarter largely became an afterthought once Apple decided to release the iPhone X six weeks after the iPhone 8.
“The Super Bowl for Apple is the iPhone X,” GBH analyst Daniel Ives said. “That is the potential game changer.”
But it also brings a potential stumbling block. While conspiracy theorists might suspect that Apple is artificially reducing supply to generate buzz, analysts say the real reason is that Apple’s suppliers so far haven’t been able to manufacture the iPhone X quickly enough.
Making the iPhone X is proving to be a challenge because it boasts a colorpopping OLED screen, which isn’t as readily available as standard LCD displays in other iPhone models. The new iPhone also requires more sophisticated components to power the facial-recognition technology for unlocking the device.