According to Hitwise the volume of US searches for the term "iphone" increased 583 percent in the past four weeks (from the week ending May 26, 2007 to the week ending June 23) leading up to the June 29 launch date. The market share of US visits to the Apple iPhone website increased 185 percent in the same time period.
Search Analysis
In the four weeks leading up the release date, the most popular queries that contained the term "iphone" were focused on price, recent news, reviews and the release date. The search term "iphone price" received the largest percentage of searches outside of "iphone" and "apple iphone", at 4.23 percent of all US searches containing the word "iphone".
The top website to receive traffic from searches on the term "iphone" for the four weeks ending June 23, 2007 was the Apple iPhone website, receiving 54.44 percent of all US traffic from the term. Following Apple was its wireless partner, AT&T Wireless, which received 6.52 percent of search volume, Wikipedia, at 2.95 percent, Engadget at 2.80 percent and MySpace with 2.48 percent of search term traffic.
Analysis
All I can say is, "Way to go Engadget!" Grabbing 2.8% of the search traffic for the iPhone is very impressive for a tech blog/site. What happened to at&t? Apple gets 54.44% of the search traffic and at&t (the reseller/service providor) only gets 6.52%?
Why was MySpace getting traffic from the iPhone searches? The only thing I can think of there is that people are writing about the iPhone on their Myspace pages.
Apple iPhone Market Share Analysis
Some folks are thinking that the iPhone will attain a 10% market share by years end.
Neil Mawston, Associate Director at Strategy Analytics said, "We forecast 20 million smartphones to be sold in the USA during 2007. We expect Apple and its iPhone portfolio to account for 2 million of that total, giving it a 10 percent share by the end of the year."
Chris Ambrosio, Director of Wireless Device Strategies at Strategy Analytics, commented, "Apple has a strong brand and good retail presence; now it needs to deliver on the product. Competitive pricing, of course, will be critical, as will the device's usability and reliability."
David Kerr, Vice President at Strategy Analytics, added, "A critical question will be what percentage of iPhone buyers will be churning from other operators? A second key issue is whether the iPhone will draw users who would otherwise have bought Nokia N series music and multimedia devices, eroding their premium tier share, or will iPhone most dramatically impact the SEMC Walkman series fortunes? The pressure is on Apple to deliver a great mobile media experience with the iPhone when it is launched on June 29, 2007. Its previous entry, with the Motorola Rokr music phone, in 2005, was a flop, and the industry will be watching carefully to see how much Apple has learned from that failure."
My thoughts on iPhone
I still see the iPhone as a flop. Yes, I know it looks cool and sexy. Yes I know it's an Apple product. I also know that you can get most of the same functionality in a less expensive product.
I have a cell phone for one reason, to make phone calls. I don't want all the extra crud Apple is putting into this thing. I already have an iPod (that I hate) so I will be staying clear of the iPhone.
