[mikeash]

Realistically, I'd estimate somewhere in the ballpark of 4,000, which is only slightly less absurd than your joke. From what I've heard, Apple stores typically only had ten or so gold units each available on launch day. That's what it was at the store where I was, and I've heard the same from others. Multiply that by the 413 Apple stores worldwide and... that's not very many. Pretty crazy.

[joakleaf]

No, but Apple probably sold most of their phones via their web site and not from retail stores.

Otherwise each retail store would have sold 20000 phones by the reverse of your math.

So 4000 is probably not a very accurate estimate either...

[mikeash]

Even if 90% of sales were online, that's still only 40,000. An order of magnitude or so of accuracy is all I'm shooting for anyway.

[joakleaf]

I am sorry, but I think you are assuming a little bit too much here.

You are guestimating that 4000 gold phones were sold in the stores based on a 10 per store rumored number you've heard and 400 stores. Then you guess that retail is only 10% (another guess) and so multiply you original guestimate by 10 to get 40000 gold phones.

It's quite hopeless guesswork. We don't know the distribution of models in retail or online. We don't know how much is sold online compared to retail. We don't know how much was sold outside Apple's retail stores (by e.g. AT&T). We don't even know the geographical distribution (i.e. higher gold-ratio in China than US).

If we assume a factor 3 to 1 sales of iPhone 5S vs 5C based on Localitics'report (1), Apple has sold between 6-7 million iPhone 5S. Your 40.000 number isn't even 1% of that, so I think you are an order of magnitude off still.

[1] http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/23/iphone-5s-3-times-...

[mikeash]

How are you assuming any less than me?

Of course mine is a complete guess. I make no claims otherwise. But so is yours. So kindly cut the attitude.

[joakleaf]

Sorry. No atitude!

Just pointing out that it is impossible to guess, and that your last number constitutes less than 1% of the total estimated iPhone 5Ss sold.

[mikeash]

OK, I probably misread the tone in your first sentence.

It's easy to guess! Nearly impossible to guess accurately, though, I agree.

You're right about it being less than 1% of the total, although I disagree that this makes the estimate absurd. I think it's entirely possible that the gold 5S constitutes less than 1% of production or sales so far. I certainly could be wrong.

[ctdonath]

Wouldn't be surprised if the bulk of the gold phones are shipped to Oriental countries, where the color is far more popular and sought after with much greater earnest (bordering on social imperative).

[mikeash]

Purely anecdotally, a ton of the people in my line wanted gold, but only the first ten people actually got one. It seems plenty popular here too.

It will be interesting if we ever get a color breakdown to see if this "gold is for Asian countries" thing actually holds up, or if it's just another instance of bizarre cultural misunderstanding.

[ctdonath]

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6430779 seems they did send most of the gold phones to Asia, and all sold out first day.

Still may be a bizarre cultural misunderstanding, as sounds like it's crazy popular everywhere else too.

Expect every smartphone maker make & push gold phones hard after today.

ETA: Note "seems". That's my impression from the link, no hard data seen yet.

[mikeash]

I can't find anything in that link that indicates most gold phones went to Asia. Did I miss it?

[crgt]

Perhaps even fewer - there are 5 Apple stores in the Minneapolis area and there was only 1 gold 5s available at each store on launch day.

[glhaynes]

Other retail stores (Best Buy, Target, Wal-mart, cell phone stores, etc) got at least some shipments over the weekend, did they not? Perhaps some golds were included in those.

[mikeash]

Extremely few. I doubt they got enough phones to make any significant difference in the overall numbers.

Totally anecdotally, I reserved a black (sorry, "space gray") phone at Target on Wednesday as a backup plan, in case I failed at the Apple store. They still haven't told me it's ready.

From what I've heard (hooray for rumors!) non-Apple stores are getting just a handful of phones, while Apple's stores are going through hundreds or thousands.