I was just answering your question and trying to avoid that whole part of the debate.
I do think a much larger percentage of shipped Android devices get "thrown out" than iOS devices. Not everyone manages their supply chain as well as Time Cook is reported to. Not sure how significant that percentage is to the totals we see.
The thing to watch for is the final marked down to clean out a particular model. Every manufacturer do that (Apple do too). The question is marked down by how much and how many unit is still in the inventory at that point.
Every company has a different sales recognition and sales channel filling policy. Some company decide a "sales" is shipping a product to retailer warehouse. Other company decide that a sales is only when a customer pay for a mechandise. Some company think that they need to have 4 weeks of sales in the retail channel other than 12 weeks. Auto companies are famous for stuffing their channel to pop up their number. It is not uncommon for auto company to have 90+ days inventory in the dealer network for slow selling model.
Most companies in the space don't disclose their sell through rate (i.e. end user sales.. They have those number, they just don't let us know), inventory level in the sales channel, or gross margin on individual product (why should they let their competitor know?). But Apple has been pretty good about disclosing information. They talked about it in earning conference call several times. They only recognize sales when it is shipped to Carriers (ATT, Verizon, 3 etc, Carrier are responsible for those paying for those unit. If they need to run clearance and cut price, carriers will have to eat the loss). Any unit that ship to Apple store are not recognized as sales until a customer picked it up There is no discussion that I know on what they do with unit shipped to Target, Walmart etc. I assume it is the same policy as Apple store. Apple like to have 4 to 8 weeks of inventory in the resell channel.
Hedge fund and big investors make or loss hundred of million dollars by getting the sales through and margin number right for each of these companies. Individual like us really don't have enough information to argue whether the number is right or wrong and what is behind those number. We simply know too little. It is best to take the number for what it is worth. It is an estimation of the market share for a period of time by IDC. The number will change next Q and we will have another big debate.
Apple is doing well in Ipad Mini even though they priced it higher than the competitor. The end result is that Ipad mini outsell Ipad 3 launch in a much more competitive market. The are in allocation now so the initial launch number is mostly sell through. The implication is that they get the pricing right and they can ramp up the supply chain and expect to sell even more. According to this rumor, Apple has the capacity to build 5M Ipad mini a month and it looks like they have the demand for that now.. I expect the LTE version will outsell wifi model. It is important to note that Ipad mini is the lowest price Apple mobile device that come with 3G/LTE connection. It is hughly important to developing country where low price is a very important consideration. We can easily see a 25-30m ipad2+Ipad3+Ipad 4+Ipad mini in 4Q and may be more in 1Q13.
The market share issue is an interesting discussion on ecosystem but not for company profit. And I can't see developer wanting to build more Android tablet apps simply because Google sell more Nexus 7 or 10. The same consumer that is attracted to Nexus 7 or 10 don't want to pay for their apps. And that is the bottom line for app developers.
http://www.padgadget.com/2012/09/18/ipad-mini-reportedly-already-in-production-at-chinese-factory/
Foxconn and Pegatron are expected to assemble 5 million iPad minis a month. While 5 million iPads minis a month may seem like a large number, only time will tell if demand for the smaller iPad which isnt even officially on the market yet will outstrip supply.