Just how many more iPhones will Apple need to sell to match pre-price cut profit levels? Nearly twice as many, Silicon Alley Insider says. Analyzing numbers compiled from iSuppli and Piper Jaffray, Alley Insider says Apple will have to sell 78 percent more, or almost 2 at the new $399 price for every 1 at the original $599. 

Alley Insider suggests Apple’s gross profit per phone tumbled 44 percent post-cut to $253 from $449. 
    
So the question is, can Apple woo twice as many buyers to iPhone with a bargain? So far, the answer is a big fat yes. Business 2.0, citing Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster, says iPhone sales tripled to 27,000 units a day in the period between Apple’s price cut and its announcement that it had sold 1 million units. There’s little chance that sales can be sustained at such a level — Munster says a 50 percent bump is more likely.

Jupiter Research’s Michael Gartenberg looks at it another way: the specifics of near term unit sales may not be as important as Apple’s ability to sprawl its OS X operating system beyond personal computers. Essentially, it put a million Apple computers on the street in 74 days, and with its wireless iPod Touch due later this month, there may be millions more in consumers’ hands by year’s end. 
     
“We’ve already seen three new products from Apple that leverage the OS X platform that aren’t called Macintosh. There’s a whole play here leveraged around new applications, services and the like. Or to put it differently, there’s an awful lot of room for new icons on both the iPhone and iPod Touch.”
(Silicon Alley Insider)
(Business 2.0 blog)
(Jupiter Research)

Keep an eye on:

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• China says it has suffered “massive” losses of state secrets through the Internet, even as it faces reports that it has raided the computer networks of Western powers. Vice Minister of Information Industry Lou Qinjian proposed a raft of counter-measures including toughened censorship, new security bodies and commercial controls. (Reuters)
• MTV’s Video Music Awards was widely panned. But Britney Spears’ opening number debacle sends ratings and Web traffic up. (Broadcasting & Cable)
• No talks on MySpace/Yahoo link-up. (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters file)