Piper Jaffray disputes '1 million iPhones' claim
updated 11:10 am EDT, Thu July 17, 2008
Piper vs. Apple on iPhone
Apple may have been deliberately ambiguous in announcing sales of 1 million iPhones during the launch weekend, says analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray. Challenging claims that his firm's estimate of 425,000 units sold was inaccurate, Munster notes that while Piper was estimating phones actually bought by the public, Apple's figure appears to have been derived from phones sold to carriers and even its own retail stores.
Having surveyed American shops for the number of phones genuinely activated, rather than simply sitting on shelves, Munster argues that the real number of phones sold worldwide is less than half a million, making Piper estimates more plausible. This tracking method should also be more reliable than with the first iPhone, because customers can no longer take a device home without signing up for a carrier subscription.
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Since all cell phones from other companies are counted based on numbers sold to carriers, why single out the iPhone. You can't compare 20 million nokias sold to carries with 500 000 iphones sold to consumers excluding carriers. It skews numbers in favor of the other phone companies. Hold all to the same standard.