You keep saying that word, but I never said I personally expected anything specific other than more sales from having more carriers. What I said that the results were not miraculous. (Perhaps it was to those who thought the 4S would be a total failure.)
Well no. Here's what you said:
kdarling said:
It would almost be a miracle if Apple's US sales share did not double from the year before when they only had a half year old model for sale on ATT during the Holiday Season.
That's a little different than saying the results were not miraculous. What you said implies the expectation that the share
would be doubled and also implies that the reason is because now Apple would have 3 models. The truth is no one expected that, as by all accounts all analysts were blown away by the reported numbers AND the fact that they had three models was inconsequential because the 4S was 90% of iPhone sales total.
I've been a carrier contractor for 15 years and an active online poster for twice that. Since I'm often responsible for specifying what devices to buy in bulk, I do pay a lot more attention (and do more calculations and keep more links and store more info) about handheld trends and figures than most. That's why a few detractors here get excited when I make a major mistake when writing; it's a rare event and appropriately calls for bringing out the piñata and sticks
I can't speak for everyone else, but I didn't bring out the sticks. Our discussion was muddled by the fanatics who need a hero to latch on to and just turned it into a smartphone holy war. I simply pointed out that you were wrong, which you were. You presented four arguments for why it would be a miracle if they didn't double their share: 1) The delay, 2) the fact that the 3GS was free and the 4 was reduced in price, 3) the holiday quarter, 4) the opening up of 130 million new customers
1 and 3 yes, will add more sales (
Guaranteed doubling of share YOY? No). 2 and 4 however you were wrong about. The 3GS and 4 had no impact on sales this past quarter, and 42% broke their contract, indicating it's not so cut and dry as they gained "130 million new customers", because the truth of the matter is if someone wanted an iPhone, a contract wouldn't be a deterrent. In fact, I believe the verbiage used was 42% broke
carrier contracts. That doesn't indicate if they switched carriers or if they just broke a contract on their current carrier, but neither you nor I are in the position to speculate on that. Again, until those numbers are disputed, that's all you or I have to go by (no matter how many links and info you have stored somewhere, and if you
do have one disputing it, please present it).
-- ATT even publicly predicted their part:
In early December 2011,
ATT wrote headlines that they "Expect Record Smartphone Sales in 4Q". They said they were selling about 3 million a month before December, so that means they expected at least 9 million over the quarter. Sure enough, ATT sold 9.4 million smartphones.
Right but your assertion of it being anything but a "miracle" was made under the assumption that the three models that AT&T had would play a big part in that. Clearly they didn't. You attributed the record numbers to Verizon and Sprint, the 3GS and 4 being discounted and the holiday quarter and delay.
Regardless of that, they expected record smartphone sales, which I would take to include both Android and iOS. Sure, it's obvious that most of that is going to be iPhone, but how did you extrapolate that to mean that iPhone would double their share in the US and it would be a miracle if they didn't? Because of the 3GS and 4 and the opening up of the market? We've seen those points to be false, until they're disputed by someone in the know. And if that is the reason you extrapolated that, then its evident you were wrong. I'm asking because I genuinely want to know.
-- Question is, how many of the record number of activations were new phones?
According to the source (CRIP) in that article you linked in another post, a part of the record number was composed of secondary market activations:
If he's right, then one to two million of the record number of ATT and Verizon iPhone activations could have been from resold or hand-me-down phones... which is important when comparing to Android numbers, where that's far less frequent. Kind of like the shipped-vs-sold debates.
How is that relevant though? Even if the phone was a hand me down, the customer who activated that phone had to be a new customer or market share wouldn't grow would it? Your statement was about market share doubling and how only a miracle would have prevented that from happening. Whether or not it was new phones doesn't matter. This is a market share discussion not a sales one (although we know regardless of hand me downs, Apple outsells everyone hands down).
Second, what's your source that it's far less frequent with Android. Not trying to be difficult or disputing that fact, but if you say something with that much conviction, you must have a source, so please provide it.
The whole point is there's no way you can say "it would have been a miracle if they didn't double their share" because that's simply not true and the facts don't back you up. Do you suppose any other company would double their share given those circumstances? Would Samsung, if they only released one android phone in 2011 have sold 37 million units? What Apple did was have the best quarter in their company's history and no one expected them to do as well as they did. It was not a guarantee that they would outsell all android phones combined, the fact that they did is what's miraculous
