Wall Street's iPhone expectations game
Apple shares are down more than 4 percent to $139.53 right now. And why? Because AT&T has revealed that it only activated 146,000 iPhones in the last two days of the second quarter. Analysts, ludicrously, had expected 500,000, a number seemingly plucked out of thin air. Consider that Apple only has 160 U.S. stores, and consider that, while flagship stores like Apple's Stockton Street palace in San Francisco got as many as 750 iPhones for the Friday, June 29, launch, smaller stores got a much smaller supply. Consider that some of AT&T's 1,800 U.S. stores got as few as 15 iPhones. Even selling their entire stock as fast as they could, could Apple and AT&T's retail outlets really have moved many more phones than they had? (Photo by Dan_H)