A few weeks ago, I noted that Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone 4 was so popular that -- three months after launch -- it was still hard to find in AT&T (NYSE: T) stores, and all but impossible to buy at Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) and Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT). Today, things are getting better in a hurry.
While the initial suppy constraints were obviously good news in a lot of respects, I expressed concern that Apple might lose out on some serious holiday sales if the bottleneck didn't start easing soon. With Research In Motion's (Nasdaq: RIMM) BlackBerry and a plethora of Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Android-based smartphones, shoppers would've had no shortage of rival products to buy as gifts instead.
But now, Joe at my local AT&T store tells me he's actually fully stocked with both 16 GB and 32 GB models. My channel checks further confirm that you can even walk into a Wal-Mart now and have a decent chance of snagging one. What's more, Apple's online store -- which had been quoting a 21-day shipping delay since launch -- is now down to five to seven business days.
There's also news that the iPad continues to sell well -- and by "well," I mean "spectacularly." CNBC's Fast Money quotes a Bernstein Research analyst as calling the iPad "a runaway success of unprecedented proportion." It's the fastest selling non-phone consumer electronic product in history: faster than DVDs, TVs, and even the Fisher Price See 'n Say. We're talking big-time cannibalization of netbooks and low-cost laptops, with anywhere from 11 million to 12.9 million iPads shipped this year.
These two developments now lead me to believe that the chances for a downside surprise for Apple's holiday quarter are greatly diminished.
And what about the months beyond that, after Santa returns to the North Pole? News that Verizon (NYSE: VZ) actually might get the iPhone in early 2011, as long rumored, means quite a spectacular sales bump. It might even double sales, according to Barron's. And that should hold us over until the inevitable iPad update, and then June iPhone update, and ... well, plenty for us tech geeks to write about through next fall, at least.
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