Apple's Bad Math Could Point To iPhone Overstock

The quarterly earnings reports of Apple and AT&T show a wide disparity of iPhones sales. Financial analysts think Apple will have a hard time selling 10 million iPhones by end of this year and have overstock problems.

Both Apple and AT&T released their quarterly earnings report this week. Apple said it shipped four million iPhones so far, both from its website and via its main provider, AT&T. In its earnings report, AT&T reported it had about 2 million iPhone customers. Wall Street analysts are concerned about this huge discrepancy. Apple and AT&T are happy with the iPhones sales so far, and Apple is very confident it will reach its goal of 10 million iPhones sold by end of this year. But financial analysts are wondering whether they will be able to reach that figure and think Apple maybe in trouble. Analysts at Sanford Bernstein have come up with their own iPhones figures. According to TheStreet.com, Bernstein estimates Apple has shipped about 3.75 million iPhones and telephone companies worldwide have activated 2.35 million. He assumes 20 per cent of the unactivated phones may have been unlocked to work on other networks not approved by Apple. So, that still leaves 670,000 iPhones unaccounted for and this may be in the form of unsold inventory. Apple has not responded to this inventory disparity. Apple’s shares have plunged considerably in the last few weeks; it was as high as $200 per share few weeks ago and now is at $130 per share. The stock dropped after Apple released its quarterly earnings report, despite having record earnings last quarter. Analysts think the slump can be attributed to a worldwide economic slowdown, thus making it more difficult for to meeting sales expectations. The only positive math figure from the quarterly earnings report was the rise in computer sales; Apple shipped 2.32 million computers in the last quarter, which was 44 per cent more than the same period a year ago, contributing to a hefty 47 per cent increase in revenue.