The Channel Wire

April 22, 2009

Apple sold nearly 3.8 million iPhones during a solid fiscal second quarter, beating analysts' estimates of 3.3 million and representing unit growth of 123 percent compared to the year-ago quarter. But Apple's Mac sales fell 3 percent compared to the year-ago quarter, the first time that has happened since 2003.

In Apple's earnings call, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer said the decline was due to the large number of Macs Apple sold in the year-ago quarter after releasing the MacBook Air. But some Apple resellers say this might not be an issue in the future if Apple allows them to sell the iPhone, something the Cupertino, Calif.-based vendor has thus far refused to do.

Apple currently sells the iPhone through its exclusive carrier partner AT&T, as well as at Best Buy and Wal-Mart stores. Speculation flared recently that Apple might allow other carriers to sell the iPhone, but in the earnings call, Apple COO Tim Cook threw cold water on that idea, calling AT&T "the best wireless provider in the U.S."

Apple talks a lot about the brand halo effect between the iPod, iPhone and Mac sales. According to many Apple resellers, this effect could be exponentially amplified if Apple were to allow them to sell the iPhone.

"I believe that Apple will open the iPhone up to other types of distribution; it's just a question of when," said Steve Bain, president of Simply Mac, a Salt Lake City-based Apple reseller. "We are an exclusively Apple store, and to not have the iPhone has been a disappointment."

In markets outside the U.S., Apple allows its agent and reseller partners to sell the iPhone, and doing the same in the U.S. would likely translate into better sales figures, Bain says. "For resellers that service hundreds of customers every day, selling the iPhone would give us another way to retain customers," Bain said.

The iPhone has a strong halo effect that has brought many PC users into the Apple fold, said Jim Schjelderup, product manager at Simply Computing, a Vancouver, B.C.-based Apple reseller. "We'd love to sell the iPhone," he said. "It offers such a great user experience that customers would invariably be drawn to other Apple products."