Now, over two weeks after the iPhone was introduced, customer demand for the device and Apple’s supply chain has synchronized, so that just 16 stores are listed as out-of-stock. Early iPhone sales were so heavy that availability plummeted to just two stores on July 5th, but it has slowly been rising since then. There’s no discernible pattern of ups-and-downs that might indicate when iPhone deliveries are made to the stores. Geographically, there have been several states nearly or completely depleted of iPhone stocks over the past 18 days, but never in any pattern. The Domain (Austin, Tex.) has been particularly hard hit, having no iPhones for at least 14 days since the iPhone was introduced. Several other individual stores have been chronically out-of-stock, including Pioneer Place (Ore.), Flatiron Crossing (Colo.), Derby Street Shoppes (Mass.) and Aspen Grove (Colo.).
At one point, 11 of the 13 newest stores were out of stock. At the same time, the five oldest stores in the chain have had some of the best availability, particularly since July 7th.
Availability of iPhones at the flagship stores has been only slightly above average, perhaps signifying the large number of sales at the stores, despite receiving a larger allocation of iPhones than other stores.
Several multi-store states have been completely sold out for several days, including Colorado (5 stores out-of-stock for at least five days), Oregon, North Carolina and Minnesota.
Check the daily Availability Index, listed at the top of the right column on the home page, and the daily analysis and availability chart.
This chart shows how many stores have had iPhone stock since the iPhone went on sale–the Availability Index:
The black line indicates the number of stores with iPhone stock, while the red line indicates the total number of U.S. Apple stores.
You can download (pdf) a day-by-day chart of iPhone availability to spot other patterns of availability.
