Submitted by Jon Reed on
Last week was clearly a very busy week for Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), as the Cupertino giant released the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and iOS 8. Tim Cook even opened the Palo Alto Apple Store himself to usher in the next generation iPhone. Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts was on site at the Sydney Apple Store for the event.
iPhone 6 sales were record breaking for the company, with over 10 million units sold in the first three days. Stock prices didn't react much during the week, hovering around $101 for most of the week and closing at $100.96 on Friday. Today is more of the same, with the price at $100.97 as of this writing, down from an opening of $101.80, which it reached in after hours trading.
Foxconn is reportedly struggling to meet iPhone 6 orders. The manufacturing giant is producing a record number of units, but still falling slightly short of the enormous demand for the new iPhones, due to manufacturing difficulties with the touch screens. The new touch screens have sensors built in to the liquid crystal displays, so the touch screen layer is no longer required. The manufacturing process hasn't quite been refined yet, however, and the company currently has an output rate of only 50-60% (meaning 40-50% are discarded).
One of the highly anticipated features of the new iPhones is the NFC chip, which will allow users to make mobile payments for items purchased at brick-and-mortar retail locations. It appears that Apple will bring along NFC slowly however, as they don't plan on giving third party developers access for at least a year. The technology is solely for use with Apple Pay for now.
Citibank and Wells Fargo both began emailing their customers, introducing them to Apple Pay. The two banking giants are among several to partner with Apple on Apple Pay, including Bank of America, American Express, Visa, Mastercard, Capital One and Chase.