You know you’ve got a hit when analysts are saying that your product will be doing something politicians have been struggling to do for years — increasing an entire country’s GDP. And that’s exactly what people are expecting to happen when the iPhone 5 release date finally arrives tomorrow.
A Wall Street Journal report discussing the upcoming iPhone 5 release date states that sales of the new iPhone 5 “could add between a quarter and half a percentage point to annualized economic growth in the fourth quarter,” according to Michael Feroli, chief US economist for JP Morgan:
“In a note to clients today (titled ‘Can one little phone impact GDP?’), Feroli walks through the math: J.P. Morgan’s equity analysts expect Apple to sell about 8 million iPhone 5 units in the final three months of the year. If the phone sells for around $600, with about $200 of it counted as imported components, then $400 per phone would figure into the government’s measure of gross domestic product. (Even though consumers may not pay that much for the phone, because of subsidies from wireless carriers, Feroli explains that phone-selling companies often report the sales based on the price of the standalone product.)”
Estimates are placing an increase of about $3.2 billion in the last quarter of the year or close to $13 billion at an annual rate which translates to about a 0.33 per cent increase to the annualized GDP growth.
Now, we can go into the details of the economics involved but for us regular people, the fact alone that a single event such as the iPhone 5 release date can have a significant impact on an entire country’s economy is simply amazing! It just goes to show that Apple affects far more than just how we use and view technology!