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Isn't that a typical way to start a new platform? Didn't Android start like that? Or OS X? Even OS X on Intel?

What's normal about launching a new platform and saying at the same time it is dead even if successful?

Why did Lumia start in the main markets, and where the new platform was not available?

Why weren't the Q4 Lumia numbers published (only 'to late January' reference)?
Why were the stillborn new platform Q4 numbers not published?
Why was there no guidance for 2012?
 
Well according to their commercials, they don't want their phones to be in demand. :rolleyes:

What does "being in demand" have to do with "staying in lines" in the age of the Internet and online commerce? Somehow Samsung manages to sell more smart phones than Apple without lines.
 
What does "being in demand" have to do with "staying in lines" in the age of the Internet and online commerce? Somehow Samsung manages to sell more smart phones than Apple without lines.

"Staying in lines" is a metaphor for "demand"...if it's not why are people standing in lines? Ohhh, because they're idiots who can't recognize a marginal upgrade when they see one, right? Or they're baristas? Man, talk about reaching their demographic! Samsung marketing thanks you.

http://www.itproportal.com/2012/01/29/iphone-4s-accounts-nine-ten-iphones-sold/
http://allthingsd.com/20120126/nine-out-of-10-iphone-buyers-are-picking-the-4s/

9 out of 10 was the best they could do?? Talk about a marginal upgrade, Apple. Back to the drawing board!!
 
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"Staying in lines" is a metaphor for "demand"...if it's not why are people standing in lines? Ohhh, because they're idiots who can't recognize a marginal upgrade when they see one, right? Or they're baristas? Man, talk about reaching their demographic! Samsung marketing thanks you.

http://www.itproportal.com/2012/01/29/iphone-4s-accounts-nine-ten-iphones-sold/
http://allthingsd.com/20120126/nine-out-of-10-iphone-buyers-are-picking-the-4s/

9 out of 10 was the best they could do?? Talk about a marginal upgrade, Apple. Back to the drawing board!!

Apparently you feel very insecure about iPhone 4S thinking that the last update was very marginal. That's what I got from your message. You are at least partially right. Last year Android phones got dual core CPUs, 1GB RAM, HD resolution screens, NFC and LTE while iPhone got only one of five (dual core CPU) and is now lagging way behind.
 
Apparently you feel very insecure about iPhone 4S thinking that the last update was very marginal. That's what I got from your message. You are at least partially right. Last year Android phones got dual core CPUs, 1GB RAM, HD resolution screens, NFC and LTE while iPhone got only one of five (dual core CPU) and is now lagging way behind.

Yeah wayyy behind. 37 million behind.
 
Isn't it funny how some posters use one set of data to argue another.

IE - Someone is discussing specs and states that the iPhone is behind on specs. Which on some levels is quite valid. Then some other poster chimes in with a sales numbers.

The argument/discussion (in the exchange) isn't about sales numbers when someone is talking about specs. They are talking about specs.
 
There are also Nokia dumb phones that sell way more than that. What's your point?

The point is the specs don't seem to be helping much. You've got phones with 4g, big screens and tons of ram, and it doesn't seem to be helping in sales. So what's your point?
 
Haha now its being broken down by store AND model? Reaching.

Very reaching. I wouldn't worry about it. A quick google for "kindle outsells ipad" brings up several Best Buy stories.

Kindle Fire outsells 16 GB iPad at Best Buy (updated)
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/11/30/kindle-fire-outsells-ipad-at-best-buy/

Recall Best Buy is the same store that sold a customer a used Xbox.

Best Buy Sells Used, Broken Xbox, Won't Exchange Or Refund
http://consumerist.com/2010/05/best-buy-sells-used-broken-xbox-wont-exchange-or-refund.html

I am all for supporting the home town companies (I live in Mpls), but not Worst Buy. To me they are Amazon's demo room. I go try out the stuff there before purchasing on Amazon ( no tax and free shipping). I always have a good laugh too when I pass the Geek Squad and see the long lines of folks with broken PC's full of malware. *cough* Get a Mac!:D

I am pretty sure Apple has nothing to worry about with another record quarter. If anyone should be worried, it should be Apple's competitors at not being able to bring a quality device to compete with iPad. LOL!
 
"Staying in lines" is a metaphor for "demand"...if it's not why are people standing in lines? Ohhh, because they're idiots who can't recognize a marginal upgrade when they see one, right? Or they're baristas? Man, talk about reaching their demographic! Samsung marketing thanks you.

Depends on the carrier and the season, if you ask me. Sell the iPhone in January instead of Summer or Fall, and see how many stand in line :)

Also, a lot of buyers in the Northeast on Verizon are used to never standing in line for desirable phones. Instead they stay cozy at home where they can order online and get the phone overnighted to their house or office.

voonyx said:
(Re: Android vs iPhone specs) Yeah wayyy behind. 37 million behind.

During the same period that Apple sold those 37 million iPhones worldwide, double that (73 million) Android phones were sold.

The point is the specs don't seem to be helping much. You've got phones with 4g, big screens and tons of ram, and it doesn't seem to be helping in sales.

According to the chart that started this thread, Samsung sold 36.5 million against Apple's 37 million... that's 98% of Apple's total... during a period when Apple debuted worldwide its first new model in well over a year.

The chart also showed that during all of 2011, Samsung outsold Apple 97.4 million to 93 million.
 
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According to the chart that started this thread, Samsung sold 36.5 million against Apple's 37 million... that's 98% of Apple's total... during a period when Apple debuted worldwide its first new model in well over a year.

The chart also showed that during all of 2011, Samsung outsold Apple 97.4 million to 93 million.

I agree with Voonyx still. Spec wars aren't really putting a dent in Apple's bottom line.

We're talking upward to 100 million phones each company, with about a 4 million unit difference. I really don't think these statistics matters much when both numbers are this high, and Apple is neck to neck without having to be a spec whore.
 
I agree with Voonyx still. Spec wars aren't really putting a dent in Apple's bottom line.

I think Apple would sell a lot more if they had no competition at all, but I know what you're saying: they're doing great anyway. The smartphone market is just exploding everywhere and there's still plenty to go around.

At the same time, nice specs _do_ seem to be helping Samsung. Heck, screen size and LTE specs pushed me to finally get a Samsung (Galaxy Nexus) after years of being an HTC fan when it came to WM and Android phone choices :)

--

Oh! That reminds me to post a couple of interesting tidbits from an article about the latest Nielson smartphone survey:

The new Windows Phone had 1.4% of USA sales last quarter. But, get this, good old Windows MOBILE smartphones still had 2.4% of sales!! Palm even got 0.5% of sales.

Nielsen's other tidbit of interest was that currently 46% of American smartphone users are on Android phones, and 30% use iOS phones.
 
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Depends on the carrier and the season, if you ask me. Sell the iPhone in January instead of Summer or Fall, and see how many stand in line :)

Well yeah, we saw that with the 4s launch. There weren't many lines, and of course the naysayers took this to mean the launch was a fail. 2 days later? Four million sold. Again, the line in the commercials is metaphorical. I find it hard to believe Samsung wouldn't want people waiting for their phones, which is why the commercial is stupid.

Also, a lot of buyers in the Northeast on Verizon are used to never standing in line for desirable phones. Instead they stay cozy at home where they can order online and get the phone overnighted to their house or office.

Yep we saw that with the 4s launch as well. Verizon opened up preorders for current customers only and within two hours they had broken the record for the most successful phone launch in their history. (again only with current customers). Again, i somehow doubt Samsung wouldn't want that kind of success because well...that's stupid.

During the same period that Apple sold those 37 million iPhones worldwide, double that (73 million) Android phones were sold.

It would be a miracle if 300+ phones didn't outsell three. Sound familiar?

According to the chart that started this thread, Samsung sold 36.5 million against Apple's 37 million... that's 98% of Apple's total... during a period when Apple debuted worldwide its first new model in well over a year.

The chart also showed that during all of 2011, Samsung outsold Apple 97.4 million to 93 million.

How many models? Head to head Samsung phones have laughable sales compared to the iphone. Second they were releasing phones the whole year round. For the iPhone to release its current model in october and still only sell three million less then all Samsung phones combined may have been "expected" by you, but that's no small feat!
 
At the same time, nice specs _do_ seem to be helping Samsung. Heck, screen size and LTE specs pushed me to finally get a Samsung (Galaxy Nexus) after years of being an HTC fan when it came to WM and Android phone choices :)

At the same time nice specs are useless if you are using them to run crappy operating system, a poorly written one.
 
Food for thought, voonyx. The fact that you are attacking kdarling and lumping him in to your Fandroid crowd should tell you just how far off your bases is and how one sided both you and your so called blog is.
 
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What's normal about launching a new platform and saying at the same time it is dead even if successful?

I don't know, ask HP about WebOS ;)

But again, you're asking, not answering. And I don't have real answers, of course. But if I try to come up with any, I'd say that the platform was not only late but badly targeted. Read the "burning platform" memo by Elop: they were still competing with devices while the competition had ecosystems (that is, a knife to a gunfight). So, no matter how successful the knife would be, the guns would have the last word, for sure. So better avoid the fight while you scramble for a gun.

Why did Lumia start in the main markets, and where the new platform was not available?

Why weren't the Q4 Lumia numbers published (only 'to late January' reference)?
Why were the stillborn new platform Q4 numbers not published?

Samsung doesn't provide numbers either, for "competitive reasons".

Why was there no guidance for 2012?

No idea. To avoid saying "we are circling the drain and have no idea what's happening next?"

Again: why don't you even try to answer your own questions? Surely will be more interesting than my guesses. If you are more informed than I am, I'd love to hear your guesses. I just hope it doesn't boil down to "Nokia was doing just fine and Elop is just a mole".
 
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Food for thought, voonyx. The fact that you are attacking kdarling and lumping him in to your Fandroid crowd should tell you just how far off your bases is and how one sided both you and your so called blog is.

First, i appreciate you reading my blog. Second, i never lumped kdarling in with anyone. Kdarling actually knows how to have a discussion (even if he's wrong sometimes). It's his supporters like you who go crazy if i disagree with him and dilute everything he's saying.

If I'm having a discussion with him, it's with him. Not my problem if you guys decide to support what he's saying no matter what and get upset if i disagree with him.

He's been fundamentally wrong on several things or made unfair comparisons and i corrected him. That doesn't mean he's a "fandroid", it just means he was wrong.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I have no problem accepting responsibility for what i say and believe unlike some here.
 
How many models? Head to head Samsung phones have laughable sales compared to the iphone. Second they were releasing phones the whole year round.

Exactly. The second explains the first.

Samsung had multiple advanced phone introductions throughout the year.

If Apple had introduced an iPhone 4, 4S, 5, 5S in the same time period, they would have split sales between them, but still do well overall just as Samsung did.

For the iPhone to release its current model in october and still only sell three million less then all Samsung phones combined may have been "expected" by you, but that's no small feat!

So you believe in the "more models = more total sales" theory? I do too, at least when it comes to dominating the total world market. OTOH, some people like *LTD* would disagree, since they believe the trick is to have fewer models, partly so they stay at the top of individual-model-charts :)

As for large or small feats, Apple started out in 4Q10 with more world sales than Samsung, but ended up growing less over the year:

Comparing 4Q10 with 4Q11, Samsung more than tripled its world sales from 11 to 36 million. Apple grew less, from 16 to 37 million, and that was with the huge boost of a long-awaited model in 4Q11.

So looking at the numbers, would you still say that Apple did anything amazing? Or would you say that they should've easily stayed ahead of Samsung, but lost their early lead by delaying a new phone? Some will just punt and say "Well, Apple's making all the profit, so numbers don't matter."

In the end, it's true that such numbers for us users are mostly passing good fun to keep our brain sharp. I've watched devices come and go for decades. Ten years from now, who knows what we'll be comparing.
 
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Exactly. The second explains the first.

Samsung had multiple advanced phone introductions throughout the year.

If Apple had introduced an iPhone 4, 4S, 5, 5S in the same time period, they would have split sales between them, but still do well overall just as Samsung did.

Well...kinda. My point is it's not so easy to discount Apple when they only had one model. That speaks more for Apple then it does for Samsung. If you're putting all these models against 1, 1 that wasn't released until the 4th quarter, and you still only have a 3 or 4 million unit lead over your competition, it's ridiculous to put out commercials acting like you wouldn't want people waiting in line for your phone. Do you really believe that Samsung doesn't want a phone as successful as the iPhone? No one is taking away from what Samsung did, but plenty are taking away from what Apple did. 90% of 4Q sales (at least based on the information we have now until its disputed) was the 4S. So no, it wasn't because they had the 3GS for free or the 4 for a lower price. People bought the 4S in droves, over any other individual phone and in the 4th quarter over ALL the android phones combined (and that was 90% of ONE model). If you want to insist that you expected that, I can't argue with you. But the fact that the day before the report came out you were still saying it's current customers, and that it was because of the 3GS, indicates there's some confusion on your part.

So you believe in the "more models = more total sales" theory? I do too, at least when it comes to dominating the total world market. OTOH, some people like *LTD* would disagree, since they believe the trick is to have fewer models so they stay at the top of individual-model-charts :)

As for large or small feats, Apple started out in 4Q10 with more world sales than Samsung, but ended up growing less over the year:

Comparing 4Q10 with 4Q11, Samsung more than tripled its world sales from 11 to 36 million. Apple grew less, from 16 to 37 million, and that was with the huge boost of a long-awaited model in 4Q11.

So looking at the numbers, would you still say that Apple did anything amazing? Or would you say that they were lagging behind Samsung's progress? Some will just punt and say "Well, Apple's making all the profit, so numbers don't matter."

In the end, such numbers are just passing good fun to keep your brain active. I've watched devices come and go for decades. Ten years from now, who knows what we'll be comparing.

Yet Apple still set a record for sales in the calendar 2Q, and outsold everyone combined in the 4th.

For 4Q, http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399508,00.asp:

As the chart nicely illustrates, total iPhone sales more than doubled over the course of a single quarter – a feat only replicated a few times in the iPhone's entire history, and using far lower numbers than the 17 million iPhones sold in the fourth quarter of 2011 and the 37 million iPhones sold in the first quarter of 2012.

I guess what I'm trying to understand is how/why when their quarter blew away everyone's expectations, you were the only person who "expected" something that's rarely happened in Apple's history to happen. Like I said if you're NOT getting paid tons of money for making these on the money predictions, you should be. And if you ARE getting paid for this, I'd love to see where you predicted this BEFORE the report came out. Expecting something is always easy in hindsight, like I mentioned before. It's just tough to swallow when people who do this stuff for a living are amazed at their growth, sales and profit in 4Q, and to you it's just a "ho hum nothing to see here, I knew this all along" situation. Especially when you based your "expectation" on strong 3GS sales, 130 million people added to their market, few people breaking contract and the holiday quarter. If Mike Levin wants to clarify the contract breaking results of CIRP's study, that's fine. Heck, I could sit here and say I expected Apple to outsell all 3G and 4G android devices combined in the 4th quarter, but I DIDN'T expect that because the entire premise of that is just ridiculous. Everyone is blown away by what Apple did, except you and the other 3 or 4 people who just take your word as gold LOL. It's not so "black and white" as you told me in another thread.

EDIT: Some more reading: http://www.cable360.net/ct/news/the...ite-Of-2011-Smartphone-Marketshare_50421.html

Apple led with 37 million iPhones shipped for a sequential growth rate of 117 percent (128 percent quarter over quarter). As a result, Apple was the Number One smartphone OEM in the quarter and for the year.

However, for the first time since Android was introduced, its marketshare fell from a 3Q11 of 52.5 percent to 47 percent in 4Q11. Despite Samsung’s 33 million shipments as the top Android OEM, ABI says Apple’s iPhone 4S “cut Samsung off at the knees and outpaced Samsung’s highly coveted 280-percent year-over-year smartphone growth.

Chinese-based handset OEMs are leading the market for low-cost Android devices, and this pressures the rest of the Android ecosystem to innovate or die. At the low end of the Android spectrum, ABI found Chinese handset OEMs Huawei and ZTE continued their upward swing, with 6.6 million and 4.5 million units shipped, respectively. As Android approaches its fifth year as a platform, “its midsection is sagging as Motorola, LG and Sony Ericsson struggle with profitability,” ABI adds.

You are an amazing man if you expected all this...
 
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Apparently you feel very insecure about iPhone 4S thinking that the last update was very marginal. That's what I got from your message. You are at least partially right. Last year Android phones got dual core CPUs, 1GB RAM, HD resolution screens, NFC and LTE while iPhone got only one of five (dual core CPU) and is now lagging way behind.

Please, enough with your spec rant. Your argument is flawed to begin with. Different hardware, different software. Er, one of five? The iPhone 4 got the retina display treatment last year as well, which is greater than a 720p display. And as for memory, Android phones need that 1GB of RAM because of a much more bloated OS. I've certainly never had to curse and yell at my iPhone because of memory running out because the iPhone is built on having a transparent experience.

Only you and a few others really care about this, and as I mentioned to Kdarling, who pointed out the sales data, it really doesn't matter.
 
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If you want to insist that you expected that, I can't argue with you.

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.)

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 :)

-- 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.

In 2010, the iPhone made up 79% of ATT smartphone activations. Therefore 79% of 9 million = 7.1 million easily predictable iPhone activations from ATT for 4Q11. (The actual number they gave is 7.6 million.)

-- 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:

"Now here’s where things get interesting: Among consumers who gave their old iPhone to someone else, 87 percent expected the recipient to activate it on a wireless carrier. Extrapolating from that, CIRP estimates that 11 percent of iPhone activations since the launch of the iPhone 4S, on Oct. 14, 2011, have been used iPhones.

That’s a significant number for a few reasons: It explains the discrepancy we sometimes see between carrier activation numbers and iPhone sales.
...
The research firm believes that, for every used iPhone that carriers activate, they save around $400. In the fourth quarter of 2011 alone, CIRP figures that secondary-market activations saved AT&T and Verizon between $400 million and $800 million in subsidy costs.

- AllThingsD"

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.
 
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Just curious kdarling, where did you get the 73 million number from for Android in the holiday quarter? Everything I can find says 60 million, which iOS edged out with 62 million.

EDIT: I find that doubly impressive if iOS managed to outsell Android on a worldwide basis.

I also agree that I wouldn't call the results miraculous (because a miracle is slightly more important than phone sales ;) ) but I'd say they were impressive and ahead of everone's expectations. I mean, they sold more phones than anyone else with only three models.
 
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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 ;)
 
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