iPhone 4 production issues causing sales to taper off?

 

Steve Jobs yesterday announced that Apple had shipped 3,000,000 iPhone 4s since launch, 22 days prior.  That seems like a pretty impressive number.  But looking a little deeper might reveal some issues.  Apple had announced sales of 1.7 million in the first three days of iPhones sales. That is an insane amount of phones, especially considering that the release was only in five countries.

But that also means that Apple has “only” sold 1.3 million iPhones in the following 19 days of sales, including international launches in Germany, the UK, France and Japan.  While Apple is saying there is a three week delay in getting iPhones, a quick check to AT&T this morning (below) shows they have stock.   Also, my local Best Buy has them available.

1.3 million iPhones in 19 days is almost 70,000/day.  That is a very solid number but not even half of what Android claims to be doing every day.

What happened?  Was the original demand so much higher than Apple anticipated that Apple can’t keep up with production?  The AT&T/Apple inventory discrepancy clouds that call.  Also, shouldn’t Apple be making more iPhones/day than Android activates?

A scary thought, but perhaps the “Antenna-gate” has slowed sales somewhat?  Or maybe Apple is tweaking production to help signal strength, but slowing down output?

Or maybe that White iPhone that comes out at the end of the month will get people buying again.

Whatever the case, it will be good to hear what Apple has to say about sales at the earnings call on Tuesday.