Apple iPhone now outselling iPod touch?

Apple’s own self-announced financial results today included sales numbers of iPhone and iPods for the January-February-March quarter of 2010, pegging iPhone sales at 8.75 million and iPod sales at 10.89 million units. But before thinking “sounds about right” and shrugging and moving on, here’s a question: do those iPod sales numbers include iPod touches? Because if they do, then there’s a revelation here.

According to Apple’s own words: “Apple sold 10.89 million iPods during the quarter.” See what I’m getting at? That 10.89 million number presumably represents combined sales of all iPod touch, iPod nano, iPod classic, and iPod shuffle devices. And while the classic has been on the backburner for awhile, we know enough about the popularity of the nano and the shuffle to safely presume that those two inexpensive-yet-popular models have to make up a decent share of that 10.89 million number, almost certainly enough to deduce that iPod touch sales for the quarter were below (perhaps well below) the 8.75 million iPhones sold. And if that’s the case, then it’s in sharp contrast to the previous quarter, in which those numbers were reversed and the iPod touch was noticeably outselling the iPhone. Of course that quarter took place over the holidays and this one didn’t, suggesting that the iPod touch’s popularity during that time was more a result of it being widely bought as a gift. The iPod touch can easily be purchased as a gift and placed under a tree; because of the activation involved, buying an iPhone as a gift is cumbersome, involving putting a gift card under the tree, and because of the cellular contract involved, an iPhone is rarely given as gift to anyone outside ones own family and/or financial umbrella.

So… all those proclamations three months ago about how the iPod touch, with its networking and internet features which can’t be used outside of the range of a wifi router, was clearly the superior device as evidenced by the fact that it was outselling the iPhone? If I’m reading these numbers correctly, it looks like the iPod touch is only really popular when you’re shopping for someone else and can’t easily buy them an iPhone; when it’s not the holidays and consumers are making their own decision between the iPhone and iPod touch, they sure seem to be leaning toward favoring the iPhone over the iPod touch, incredulous cries of “but it comes with a contract!” or otherwise.

These numbers were released minutes ago, so go easy on me here – it’s possible that the 10.89 million iPods number could instead be in reference to just the non-touchscreen iPod models, and that Apple has declined to disclose iPod touch sales numbers at all – which is why I’ve placed this in the “blog” section for now until I can get clarification. But if I am interpreting these numbers in what appears to be the only obvious way to interpret them, then it sure pokes a lot of holes in that “iPod touch is the future of the iPhone” nonsense we keep hearing from geeks and pundits.

About Bill Palmer

Bill Palmer is Editor in Chief of Beatweek Magazine. His editorial contributions include interviews with musicians and iPhone industry coverage.