The iPhone Doesn’t Appeal to Business Customers at All?

$500 fully subsidized with a plan! I said that is the most expensive phone in the world and it doesn’t appeal to business customers because it doesn’t have a keyboard, which makes it not a very good email machine…. Right now we’re selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year, Apple is selling zero phones a year. In six months, they’ll have the most expensive phone by far ever in the marketplace and let’s see…what’s the expression? Let’s see how the competition goes.” —Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the iPhone, January 2007

“Apple’s iPhone 3G, introduced in July, is the only reason smartphone growth did not slow in September.” This according to Needham analyst Charles Wolf, who in a research note today points out that the nearly seven million iPhones Apple (AAPL) shipped during the three-month period ending September account for all of the sequential shipment growth in the quarter. Astonishing. The iPhone now represents about 16.6 percent of the entire smartphone market worldwide, second only to Nokia (NOK).

One phone. One, maybe two, carriers per market. Nearly 17 percent of the entire smartphone market worldwide in under two years. What was that you said again, Steve?