Apple iPhone knocks rivals off tree
Asher Moses (SMH)
January 10, 2007 - 1:29PM
The Apple iPhone
The Apple iPhone
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The iPhone was launched less than 24 hours ago but it is already having a marked impact on Apple’s competitors.
Following Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s announcement of the hybrid mobile phone device early this morning, Apple’s share price surged by more than 8 per cent, while competitors’ shares plummeted.
Jobs foreshadowed this when, during his speech outlining the device, he rubbished the existing array of smartphones and their “plastic little keyboards”.
“The problem is they’re not so smart and they’re not so easy to use,” he said, before showing images of Motorola, BlackBerry, Palm and Nokia smartphone devices.
“After today, nobody is going to look at these [other mobile phones] the same way again.”
Shares in Research in Motion (RIM), which produces the popular BlackBerry handheld, fell on the Nasdaq by more than 7 per cent.
RIM has not traditionally competed in the same space as Apple, but with the announcement of its Pearl device - which features a media player, integrated camera and sleeker design than previous models - RIM has made a concerted push into the home user market.
The share price of Palm, which produces the popular Treo smartphone range, tanked by almost 6 per cent, while Nokia and Motorola had only modest drops of under 2 per cent.
The Sony Ericsson joint venture, responsible for the popular range of Walkman mobile phones, is not listed as a separate entity on the Nasdaq. However, Ericsson’s shares were down by 1 per cent following the announcement while Sony’s were up by approximately 3.5 per cent.
Apple’s competitors refused to comment on the iPhone announcement.
The iPhone is a touchscreen device capable of making mobile phone calls, playing music and browsing the web. It comes in 4GB and 8GB models, which are priced at $US499 and $US599 respectively.
It won’t be available to Australians until next year, but US consumers will be able to buy it from June.