"Ness-Net" <richard.nodamn@nessnet.spam.com> wrote in message
news:i6Kdna86VZG5rePVnZ2dnUVZ_rTinZ2d@giganews.com ...
> http://www.gearlog.com/2008/07/is_ap...n_iphone_c.php
>
> That number, however, may have, in fact, been exaggerated--a lot.
> According to Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, the number of phones sold over
> that time period is probably closer to 425,000. According to the analyst's
> numbers, it will likely take Apple around 17 days to actually hit the one
> million mark.
> The discrepancy apparently has to do with the way Apple records its sales,
> logging one for both every unit sold in their stores and each one shipped
> to wireless carriers, like AT&T, meaning that one million units may be out
> of Apple's hands now, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all of them
> are in the hands of consumers.

While true, it's also how all phone manufacturers could their sales, so when
Motorola brags they sold their 60 millionth (or whatever) Razr the same rule
applies, so this isn't some number-fluffing trickery that's exclusive to
Apple.

In fact, Apple's numbers are in some ways more "honest" than other
manufacturers, since other manufacturers do not operate retail stores.
Apple doesn't count phones "sold" to their own stores' inventory as sales-
only phones sold at retail, whereas Motorola or Samsung do not operate
retail stores- ever "sale" they report was a wholesale sale to a distributor
or carrier- not to an end-user.

And, frankly, from Apple's (or Nokia's, Motorola's et al's) perspective, the
retail sales (at AT&T stores) don't matter now that the revenue sharing
deals are gone. Apple only gets paid when AT&T buys the product- not when
it's activated.