In its effort to sell as many iPhones as possible, Apple
(NASDAQ:
AAPL
) may have sold a few million iPhone 5 units to corporate users.
More importantly, some of them may have been new users that the
company acquired from Research In Motion (NASDAQ:
RIMM
).
According to Trip Chowdhry, the Managing Director of Equity
Research at Global Equities Research, "Probably three million to
four million new Apple iPhones have been purchased by enterprises
for their employees in the December 2012 quarter."
"This figure emerges from a combination of new purchase of
iPhones and users switching to iPhones from Blackberry," Chowdhry
wrote in a note to investors. "After the two-year contract
expiration on Apple iPhone[s], [the] majority of the enterprises
have replaced their employees' current phones with the new iPhone
5."
Interestingly, Chowdhry said that most companies did not ask for
employees to return their iPhones after changing jobs. This means
that Apple may have received additional orders as employers
attempted to replace their lost phones.
Chowdhry believes that iPhone 5 sales increased for the
following reasons:
"The rise of Enterprise SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) applications
such as Salesforce (NASDAQ:
CRM
) and Workday is acting as a catalyst for wnterprises to purchase
iPhones for their employees." "Increasingly, Salesforce.com,
Workday, VMware and Citrix sales people are demonstrating their
enterprise offering on iPhones, which is also acting as a trigger
for enterprises to purchase iPhones for their employees." "[An]
increase in [the] adoption of Evernote in enterprises is also
driving many enterprises to purchase iPhones for their employees."
"Maturity of MDM (Mobile Device Management) applications has
significantly reduced the barriers to enterprise adoption of
Apple['s] iPhone."
Chowdhry said that he observed "similar strong figures of iPhone
purchases by enterprises earlier in March 2012 and April 2012."
Apple does not typically provide sales details beyond quarterly
units and milestone achievements (ex: when the company sold its 100
millionth iPad). Thus, it may be difficult to tell exactly how many
corporations have purchased the iPhone versus BlackBerry
devices.
While Apple has lost nearly 20 percent of its value over the
last three months, the stock is currently up more than two
percent.
Research In Motion, which has gained more than 43 percent in the
last 90 days, is down less than one percent today.
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@LouisBedigianBZ
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