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The Most Popular Product Of All Time

Posted by msmash on from the growing-trend dept.

Apple announced Wednesday that it has sold more than one billion iPhones. To understand the magnitude of the milestone, Asymco's Horace Dediu has compiled a list of the best-selling products across several categories. From his post (link shared via email by reader JoshTops):Car model: VW Beetle 21.5 million; car brand: Toyota Corolla 43 million; music album: Thriller 70 million; vehicle: Honda Super Cub 87 million; book title: Lord of the Rings 150 million; toy: Rubik's Cube 350 million; game console: Playstation 382 million; book series: Harry Potter Series 450 million; mobile phone: iPhone 1 billion.
The iPhone is not only the best-selling mobile phone but also the best selling music player, the best-selling camera, the best-selling video screen and the best-selling computer of all time. It is, quite simply, the best-selling product of all time. It is that because it is so much more than a product. It is an enabler for change. It unleashed forces which we are barely able to perceive, let alone control. It changed the world because it changed us. And it did all that in less than nine years. Update: 07/28 20:07 GMT by M :Dediu just told me that the list doesn't include consumable non-durable products.

9 of 367 comments (clear)

  1. Big Mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Big Mac is the most popular product of all time.

    1. Re:Big Mac by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Not to mention things like Blu Tac, Sellotape, a lot of brands of condoms, Bic Pens, most brands of cigarettes.

      Those are consumables. If you only look at durable goods, and you multiply the number manufactured by the useful lifetime, then I nominate the AK-47. Over 100 million have been manufactured, and many are still in use after more than 60 years.

    2. Re:Big Mac by Nidi62 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not to mention things like Blu Tac, Sellotape, a lot of brands of condoms, Bic Pens, most brands of cigarettes.

      If you only look at durable goods, and you multiply the number manufactured by the useful lifetime, then I nominate the AK-47. Over 100 million have been manufactured, and many are still in use after more than 60 years.

      Lord of War, while a little preachy, has one of the best gun comments ever: "the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It's the world's most popular assault rifle. A weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple 9 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn't break, jam, or overheat. It'll shoot whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand. It's so easy, even a child can use it; and they do. The Soviets put the gun on a coin. Mozambique put it on their flag. Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people's greatest export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. " Perfectly sums up the engineering simplicity of the gun, as well as the mark (good or bad) that it has had on the world. But it definitely has made a much bigger impact on the world than the iPhone has.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    3. Re:Big Mac by Tablizer · · Score: 5, Funny

      And if you "register" your product, you get Fry's with it.

      --
      Table-ized A.I.
  2. I think the most popular product... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Would be a knife. Everyone alive and dead has (had) at least one since longer than we've been human.

  3. Perception by VorpalRodent · · Score: 5, Funny

    It unleashed forces which we are barely able to perceive...

    ...except with an oscilloscope.

    But seriously, hyperbolize much?

    --
    Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
  4. Re:BS "most popualar" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Exactly, this is just an exercise in mental fapping.

    Even then its still not the best selling product. Each model is a DIFFERENT PRODUCT.

  5. Re:BS "most popualar" by AmiMoJo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If they are counting all models of iPhone as one, they should count all Android phones as one too. In which case the iPhone is small fry - last year Android was estimated to have 1.4 billion active users.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  6. Re: BS "most popualar" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books

    or the Bible at over 5 billion copies