iPhone Availability

I created a map to visualize the iPhone availability.

Purely mapping the countries based upon whether or not the iPhone is available is insufficient as the iPhone carrier(s) in a country may have a small market share (Slovenia where the sole iPhone carrier, Si.mobil, has a 29% market share)  or the iPhone may have only been recently introduced (Bolivia – 13.1.2012).  I followed the followig steps to account for these dimensions in the iPhone Availability map:

First, I identified the countries are carriers supporting the iPhone (http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1937).

Second, I collected the subscriber base for each of the carriers and for each country.

Next, I determined the number of subscribers in a country who have the iPhone available to them.  This required me to incorporate the amount of time a carrier has offered the iPhone.  I identified the launch date of the iPhone for each carrier and assumed that a carriers subscriber base has had full availability for to the iPhone if the launch date occurred more than 1.5 years ago.  If a carrier has offered the iPhone for less than 1.5 years, I prorated the carrier’s subscribers based upon how long the carrier has offered the iPhone.  The total number of subscribers in a country who have the iPhone available to them is the summation of all subscribers on carriers who launched the iPhone more than 1.5 years ago and the prorated amount of subscribers on carriers who launched the iPhone less than 1.5 years ago.

Finally, I calculated a country’s iPhone Availability by dividing the (previously calculated) number of subscribers on carriers who sell the iPhone by the total number of mobile subscribers in the country.  The resulting numbers range from 0 (no carriers offer iPhone) to 1 (all subscribers have access to iPhone on their carrier).

Perhaps a numerical example will be easier to understand:

South Korea

• 3 carriers

o   SK Telecom - 26.5M subs - launched iPhone on 3/16/11

o   KT - 17.3M - launched iPhone 11/28/09

o   LG U+ = 9.4M – does not sell iPhone

• Total mobile subs = 53.25M

• iPhone Availability = (KT subs + prorated SK subs) / (total subs)
• Prorated SK subs = 26.5M *(5/22/2012 - 3/16/2011)/365/1.5 = 26.5 *(433/365)/1.5 =20.9M subs

• iPhone Carrier Availability = (17.3M + 20.9M)/53.25M = .72