With Apple having shipped 13.7m iPhones in 2008, this is a timely column on how badly analysts/journalists missed iPhone shipments over last two years. Wish people did more of this sort of thing, holding people’s feet to the fire of their own estimates:
Lance Davis, writing at the UK Register, heavily discounted the likelihood of the iPhone reaching such stratospheric heights. He was wrong on every count. "It would be surprising if iPhone accounted for one per cent of sales just within the one network which had been announced — AT&T." That would be half a million smartphones. Apple sold more than 1.1 million phones in Q307, the first full quarter it was available, alone.
Mike Elgan, writing for Computerworld (like The Industry Standard, a publication of IDG) said selling 10 million phones was "probably an unreachable goal… by setting the bar at 10 million iPhones sold by 2008, Jobs unnecessarily risks the erosion of faith in Apple when the company fails to reach that goal."
Quoted in the New York Times, Edward Snyder with Charter Equity Research said Apple would "have a difficult time" selling 10 million iPhones in 2008.
Charles Jade at Ars Technica wrote "it’s a good thing Steve Jobs dropped out of college" since analysts with "advanced degrees in business and economics" doubted Apple’s ability to sell 10 million iPhones in 2008.
[via Industry Standard]
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