Apple Makes $831 On Each AT&T iPhone
Found on Slashdot on Saturday, 27 October 2007
The NYTimes reports that Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, has studied Apple's financial statements and come to the conclusion that AT&T is paying Apple $18 a month, on average, for each iPhone sold by Apple and activated on AT&T's network - up to $432 over a two-year contract.
Last week Apple disclosed that 250,000 iPhones had been purchased but not registered with ATT that Apple thinks are being unlocked so Apple has now taken action to curb unauthorized resellers by limiting sales of the iPhone to two per customer and requiring that purchases must now be made with a credit or debit card - cash will not be accepted.
Now it should be obvious that neither Apple nor AT&T are interested in any competition on the iPhone sector. Those possibly unlocked phones equal a loss of 54 million dollar per year for Apple; AT&T doesn't get any money from those either. Their actions to stop this are ridiculous: some unlocker just needs to announce that he will pay the original price plus a bonus for each iPhone sold to him, and tons of people will use their credit cards to get them. If they then sell it to him, well, that's their business.