iPhone Mania: How Much Is Too Much?

When it comes to iPhone and Apple hype, I thought I'd seen it all. When consumers go ga-ga over a point-one release of an aging Apple operating system, that's one thing. For a fussy magazine like BusinessWeek to jump into the ring is another altogether. BW's wild prediction: The iPhone "may be a $10 billion business" for Apple by 2009. That, my friends, is certified crazy talk.

Don't get me wrong. I can't wait to get my hands on the iPhone. I'm on Apple's list for a review unit. I'm a fan of the iPod. And I was just remarking today that the iPhone could be the gadget that finally pushes me into becoming a full-time smartphone user.

But is Apple going to sell $10 billion worth of phones in 2009? Let's consider the rationality of this statement.

The most successful phone of all time is the Motorola RAZR. To take you on a little history lesson, the RAZR was originally priced, just like the iPhone, at a whopping $500, but the price rapidly plummeted as Motorola rolled it out to the masses. The result: Motorola sold 50 million of the things in eight months, most at a price of about $100 or $50. And that was the carrier price. There's no telling exactly what Motorola made off the RAZR, but let's be optimistic and assume the company got $100 for each handset, or $5 billion in eight months. Again, that's the most successful phone ever, from a company with years of experience in the business. For Apple to double that in 2009 seems, well, a little out of bounds. (One wholly insane analyst pegs his estimate at 45 million phones in 2009.)

Apple's internal estimate is to sell 10 million phones by the end of 2008: 16 months to make what the RAZR made in half the time (and by selling 1/5 the number of phones). This seems doable, but making projections beyond 2008 (and to quadruple those sales) for a market that changes this quickly is insane.

History lesson #2 is the same as the first: The Motorola RAZR. After the huge success of the RAZR, Motorola got caught resting on its laurels and scurried to find a successor. None ever emerged, and Motorola suffered badly after. Motorola was attacked on all sides by competitors who imitated the RAZR, many of whom did it better. The result: The company's stock is down now to where it was before the RAZR was ever invented.

Competition seems to be the one thing that most observers have forgotten about. Do people really think that the iPhone is so unique that it can't be imitated? Sure, it's easy to say that competitors to the iPod haven't caught on, and that's a good argument. But a phone is a different beast and the competition is far more intense. And there are just too many question marks surrounding the thing. If you thought the RAZR knockoffs were something, just wait until Christmas 2007 rolls around. They're already starting to show up, in fact.

Will people get the hang of a buttonless phone? Will the lack of 3G be a deal killer? Will the interface be too hard to use? Will the pictures suck? And do average consumers even want a smartphone? The Sidekick's been around for years, and you barely see them on the streets. Aside from the touchscreen, the Sidekick can do pretty much everything the iPhone can do, and it looks pretty cool, too.

I don't have the answers to any of these questions yet, but the fact that we don't know the answers means that I'm not ready to crow that Apple will somehow add $10 billion in revenue starting a year and a half from now. (For comparison, Apple made $19 billion overall in 2006.)

Still, Apple has done some amazing tricks in the past. No one thought the iPod would take off like it did, and though the company has foundered with Apple TV, its other businesses are rock solid and growing.

But yet, I have to wonder... if this is such a miraculous product, why didn't Apple make it two years ago when it first had the chance, instead of opting to build its first iTunes phone through a disastrous, doomed partnership with, you guessed it, Motorola.