Apple Inc. Stock Pops After iPhone X Sells Out In Minutes

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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) stock surged on Friday after the company revealed that iPhone X preorders were “off the charts.” It seems like the $1,000 price tag didn’t scare anyone away, and the iPhone X was reportedly sold out in only 10 minutes. There was so much traffic on Apple’s website and on mobile carriers’ websites that many of them crashed under the weight of people who got up in the middle of the night to preorder Apple’s latest and greatest iPhone.

iPhone X shipment times rise rapidly

Drexel Hamilton analyst Brian White said in a note to investors that only those who preordered an iPhone X “in the opening minutes” seem to have gotten a Nov. 3 ship date. Within minutes, shipping times grew first to one to two weeks and then two to three weeks after 30 minutes had passed.

He also looked into lead times for the phone in China and reported that they were at five to six weeks on Friday. He predicts that the iPhone X could finally turn the company’s trends in Greater China positive on a quarterly basis in the first half of fiscal 2018 with a return to growth in the year. Reclaiming China would likely give Apple stock a major boost as sales there have been declining since after the iPhone 6 cycle.

According to MarketWatch, Cascend Securities analysts conducted their own survey of availability for the iPhone X in the 100 biggest U.S. markets. They learned that in all of them, the iPhone X was sold out on preorder online home delivery within five hours. However, they also reported that some supply was still available in stores, either for purchase online with in-store pickup on Nov. 3, which is launch day. They also said that supply was dwindling fast and expected it to be gone by noon or possibly before.

Bogged down by glitches

Reports of short supply also spilled over onto social media where people tweeted their frustrations with the Apple Store app, Apple’s website and their mobile carriers’ websites. It seems buyers took our recommendations of keeping multiple browser tabs open when trying to place their preorders, and all the extra traffic crashed the sites.

Technical glitches were widespread as some buyers even reported that they preordered within a minute of iPhone X preorders going live in the Apple Store app and still didn’t get a Nov. 3 delivery date.

Apple stock surges on iPhone X demand

Apple guru and analyst-turned-venture-capitalist Gene Munster took to his traditional habits of checking out demand on the first day of a new iPhone, although these days he’s with Loup Ventures, the venture capital firm he founded.

Munster’s team at Loup shared lead times for iPhone X shipping dates on Friday and found that in less than three minutes, all iPhone X models except for those running on the Sprint network had ship times of two to three weeks. By Friday afternoon, lead times were five to six weeks, and Munster wrote in a post on his firm’s website that demand for the phone “is trending more favorable than investor expectations.” Thus, the iPhone X can be credited for Friday’s rally in Apple stock.

Apple stock closed up 3.56% at $163.05 on Friday as it approached the 52-week high of $164.64 but just couldn’t get over the bump. Friday was a strong day for tech stocks in general, with Microsoft’s and Intel’s earnings beats Thursday nights driving strong gains in their stocks. The gains in Intel and Microsoft stock added approximately 63 points to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, MarketWatch estimates. Unfortunately, that gain was eaten up by Chevron’s and Merck’s declines after both companies disappointed before the bell on Friday.

Apple stock added another 39 points to the Dow, however, resulting in a 22-point gain for the index to close out the week.

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