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| Customers arrive to purchase an iPhone X at an Apple store in New York |
Shoppers surged into Apple Inc stores across the world on Friday to buy the new iPhone X, signalling stronger demand for the 10th anniversary version of the premium smartphone than the last two iterations.
Investors and analysts took the swell of interest, alongside the companyโs better-than-expected sales forecast for the upcoming holiday shopping season, as signs that Apple could be the first ever company worth $1 trillion.
Appleโs shares rose 3 percent on Friday, hitting a record high and giving the worldโs most valuable publicly traded company a market capitalization of almost $890 billion.
โI canโt wait to get to my office and plug it in, back it up and play around with it,โ said Jordan Shapiro, a 34-year-old recruiter from New Jersey who was one of the first to get into Appleโs flagship store on Manhattanโs Fifth Avenue, at the head of a line that stretched for a block.
Jasmine Rivera, a 16-year-old from Las Vegas, said getting one of the new phones was the highlight of her New York trip with her aunt.
โIโm so excited and canโt wait to show this to my friends,โ she said. โIโm especially excited about the camera quality and facial recognition.โ
The glass-and-stainless-steel device that Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook has billed as โthe biggest leap forward since the original iPhone,โ starts at $999 in the United States.
The handset features an edge-to-edge display designed for deeper colour rendition and an innovative camera that uses facial recognition to unlock and operate the phone.
Cook appeared on TV greeting the first customers in line at the companyโs store in Palo Alto, California, about a half-hour drive from Appleโs headquarters in Cupertino.
In nearby San Francisco, about 250 people lined up outside the Apple store in the Union Square shopping district.
โIโm feeling good, but my socks are wet,โ said Ross Hendrix, 20, one of the first in line after camping out on the sidewalk despite a light rain on Thursday night.
GLOBAL EXCITEMENT
Similar scenes of excitement occurred earlier in the day in Asia and Europe.
In Australia, around 400 people queued outside Appleโs main store in central Sydney to pay A$1,579 ($1,218) for the new phone. Just 30 turned up for the September release of the iPhone 8, an incremental update of the iPhone 7.
โItโs beautiful bro, what a feeling, Iโm excited,โ builder Bishoy Behman, 18, told Reuters after picking up two iPhone X as the first in line. He said he camped outside the store for a week before paying to improve his place in the queue overnight.
In Appleโs Omotesando store in Tokyo, some 550 people were waiting in a line stretching to around 600 metres.
โIโm going home, and after having a rest, Iโd like to have fun (with the phone),โ said first-in-line Yamaura, a 21-year-old college student who spent six days in the queue.
In Europe, Apple stores in Amsterdam, Berlin and London saw lines of several hundred fans, while smaller, more subdued crowds were observed at stores in Frankfurt and Paris.
Arbitrage traders were also in line in an attempt to take advantage of the strong demand. In Hong Kong, some buyers quickly resold iPhone X handsets for a profit, but the resale premium eased as waiting times fell and supply concerns eased.
Newly purchased iPhone X were reselling for HK$11,800 ($1,512) soon after sales began, but the price quickly fell to HK$10,300, a trader told Reuters. In mainland China โ where Hong Kong traders often sell newly purchased goods โ the anniversary modelโs starting price is 8,388 yuan ($1,267).
SUPPLY CLOSER TO DEMAND
Analysts had expressed concern that supply issues might stop Apple satisfying early demand. The camera, for instance, has never before been manufactured in the volume Apple demands.
But Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri told Reuters on Thursday that Apple was โquite happyโ with how manufacturing of the iPhone X was progressing.
โProduction is growing every week, and thatโs very, very important during a ramp period,โ he said.
Demand and supply for the iPhone X appear to be coming back into balance, according to Appleโs online store. While last week users trying to order the iPhone X were told they faced waits up to five to six weeks, these delays are now three to four weeks.
The rush of interest in the new phone came after Apple issued an upbeat sales forecast for the year-end holiday shopping season on Thursday.
Wall Street welcomed that outlook, and five analysts now have stock price targets that would move Appleโs market value past $1 trillion.
Fridayโs lines signalled the company was โon track for a pretty good replacement cycleโ said Edison Investment Research analyst Richard Windsor, but he questioned whether the new model sales will be as large as prior iPhone upgrade cycles.
โWe do not think that the iPhone X will offer a cycle nearly as big as the iPhone 6 and my concern is that this is what the market is looking for,โ said Windsor, who actively tracks all the major players in the global smartphone industry.
