An iPhone’s Journey, From the Factory Floor to the Retail Store (Published 2016) (2024)

FAQs

How many Apple phones were sold in 2016? ›

The iPhone was released in the United States on June 29, 2007, at the price of $499 for the 4 GB model and $599 for the 8 GB model, both requiring a 2-year contract.

– Freight carriers fly the iPhones to the US in a wide-body Boeing 747 which can easily hold 150,000 iPhones. – The iPhones land in Anchorage, AK where they refuel and head to major logistics hubs in the US.

Basically, most of the process of manufacturing an iPhone consists of buying the products from manufacturers and assembling them in proper factories. Nevertheless, the case of iPhone itself and further improvements on it contain a lot of engineering manufacturing methods.

This year, Apple released a new iPad, a new Apple Watch, a couple of new MacBook Pro models, and for the first time, three new iPhone models in a single year.

A first-edition 2007 Apple iPhone has sold for more than $190,000 at auction, far exceeding the estimate. Dubbed the “Holy Grail” by auctioneer LCG Auctions, the 4GB model was expected to fetch in the region of $50,000-$100,000.

LCG described the phone as a “holy grail” among iPhone collectors due to its extreme scarcity. It is uncommon to find a first-generation iPhone with no damage to its display or broken buttons.

If you want the most affordable iPhone, you're going to be looking at the iPhone SE (at least when it comes to brand-new phones, that is). Updated in 2022, the third-generation iPhone SE maintains the overall design of the iPhone 8, which will be familiar to a lot of iPhone buyers.

Most users use their iPhones for three to four years before upgrading to a new one. With battery replacements, you can extend this timeline to as much as five to six years. Beyond that, we recommend upgrading to a new iPhone to get the cumulative upgrade experience and the latest security and software updates.

How many iPhones are made a day? ›

The world's most valuable company Apple at one point in time had their main supplier making 500,000 of its cell phones per day at one mega factory in China. Then last year, COVID-19 lockdowns and protests of harsh working conditions caused major disruptions at the factory.

Nearly half of the Apple's iPhones are manufactured at Foxconn's Zhengzhou plant in central China. There are 94 iPhones production lines operated by 350,000 workers, and about 350 iPhone units are assembled per minute at the Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou.

Apple

iPhone / Manufacturer

That said, good iPhones can come from just about anywhere in the world but China is Apple's favorite.

The iPhone reportedly became the most-used smartphone globally in 2023, overtaking Samsung's throne. Last year, the tech giant shipped 235 million iPhones worldwide, while 35% of all users owned the device, helping the company's cumulative sales revenue hit record highs.

In 2015, Apple sold 225.9 million iPhones, to achieve a market share of almost 16 percent.