July 4th, 2007
Yesterday Ged pointed out an article by Scott Moritz in The Street, in which Moritz claimed that iPhone sales targets were missed on its opening weekend:
The sales goal — or so-called whisper number — both internally at Apple and on Wall Street was a nice round 1 million phones.
The problem is, Moritz doesn’t give a source for that “whisper number”, and all sales predictions I’ve found have been well under one million phones for the opening weekend. From Bloomberg we have these pre-iDay projections (emphasis added):
Shoppers may have bought as many as 700,000 units over the weekend, according to David Bailey, a Goldman Sachs analyst, twice his projection of 350,000.
Gene Munster, a Piper Jaffray analyst, said shoppers had bought as many as 500,000 units over the weekend, more than twice his projection of 200,000.
And Bill Shope, a J.P. Morgan Securities analyst, estimated sales at 312,000. Before the phone’s debut Friday, analysts expected Apple to sell 50,000 to 200,000 units.
Pacific Crest Securities projected sales of 400,000 units over opening weekend.
Furthermore, Moritz himself didn’t think there were even a half a million units available in brick and mortar Apple or AT&T stores on opening weekend:
So with 1,962 stores and let’s say 200 phones per store, Apple stands to sell some 392,000 iPhones
Maybe he thought online sales were going to account for 600,000 units, but that seems doubtful. And if he knew about predictions of one million sales for opening weekend, that probably would have been worth mentioning along with his calculations. It would be nice to know who exactly whispered “one million” to him, because for the moment that number doesn’t seem to have been whispered to anyone else.
(Full disclosure: I own me some AAPL, and thus hope the iPhone is wildly successful.)
July 4th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Excellent post Anthony! I’ve just written the following to Moritz. I suggest you and others take him to task similarly:
“I have never, in all my professional life, read a more disingenuous, misleading article about a tech company or its product. I have scoured the web trying to find ANYWHERE that stated Apple was shooting to sell 1 million phones in the first weekend, and I have found NOTHING.
This so-called whisper number you quote is completely and wholly fabricated by *you* for some reason yet unknown. If I am wrong, PLEASE point me in the direction where it states otherwise.
Even you, your self did not quote a million phone number for the iPhone launch just prior to its debut. Let’s see what you did say:
“So with 1,962 stores and let’s say 200 phones per store, Apple stands to sell some 392,000 iPhones”
So my question is where do you get off creating these fictional expectations for shareholders and customers alike? What is the purpose of so GROSSLY distorting the facts in this case?
I suggest you issue a correction as early as possible to both Apple and your readers, because anything less is completely unethical. Either that, or tell us your sources for this “whisper number” you speak of.
Pathetic.”
July 4th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Got the following in reply to my letter to Moritz:
“Thanks for the note Gedeon.”
No attempt to explain or defend his article. So this time I’m writing to the editors of TheStreet.com
“Dear Editors,
I’d like an explanation for the derogatory and misleading sales numbers author Scott Moritz quoted in his recent iPhone article “Apple’s iPhone Misses Sales Targets”.
Moritz claims to have first hand knowledge of a “whisper figure” that Apple had wanted to sell one million iPhones in the opening weekend. Despite an *exhaustive* search of all iPhone news and coverage leading up to the launch, I could find no such claim by Apple OR any industry experts.
Indeed, David Bailey, a Goldman Sachs analyst, projected sales of 350,000 units
Gene Munster, a Piper Jaffray analyst, said shoppers would buy as many as 200,000 units over the weekend.
And Bill Shope, a J.P. Morgan Securities analyst, estimated sales at 312,000.
Before the phone’s debut Friday, ALL analysts expected Apple to sell 50,000 to 200,000 units.
Scott Moritz is creating the 1 million figure out of whole CLOTH. Nowhere did Apple say or even “whisper” expectations of 1 million units sold through the channel in this opening weekend. This is a blatant attempt to manipulate stock price and spread miss-information about the iPhone and I intend to tell as many people as possible so if Moritz does not issue a correction/retraction asap.
As an Apple shareholder myself, I speak for anyone who holds stock in this company. Stop playing games with the facts Mr. Moritz, your quest to berate Apple and the iPhone for your own personal gain is shameless and unethical. Either explain where this so-called figure came from or issue a correction. Anything less is unacceptable.”
July 5th, 2007 at 3:26 am
arg, too many caps. An Argument DOESN’T gain force when SHOUTED…
Are you selling the fact that the moon-landings were faked or debating an issue with a journalist? One of these arguments loves capitals, the other begs a different tone.
July 5th, 2007 at 4:21 am
As a share holder of AAPL I stand behind you Ged, what Scott Moritz wrote be criminal and should be reported to SEC.
July 5th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Unfortunately, any response - calm and well though-out or written in all caps - will simply get dumped into the “Mac Zealots” bin, and will simply provide fodder for another useless column. When will people learn that the best way to deal with these types of “writers” is to simply ignore them? Don’t respond, don’t visit their site, don’t post about them.
Online columnists can and do gain and profit from popularity or notoriety - online editors don’t care which because they need to sell page views and gain mind-share. What online columnists cannot survive is irrelevance.
My guess is that this author knew full well of the inconsistencies in his argument and had already made a conscious decision to publish the article as is. Therefore, pointing them out accomplishes absolutely nothing, except maybe giving him a slight chuckle and fodder for the next article.
Please, for the sake of accuracy and accountability in web reporting - ignore them.
July 5th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Sorry Israel, but I couldn’t disagree with your assessment more. Moritz’s article isn’t about his opinion, it isn’t “gossip”, it deals with cold hard facts. When people, especially so-called “experts” ride rough shot over the facts, then they always deserved to be called out on it, *always*.
If we let this blatant miss-reporting go unchecked, he and others will continue to do so. As an Apple shareholder, I don’t take kindly to someone publishing incorrect information about the company I invest in. This in of itself is reason alone to call for a correction.
July 5th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
zpok, lighten up. I didn’t write the entire letter in caps, I emphasized certain words. I didn’t use swears or slag, and I wrote a well informed, concise letter.
July 5th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Thanks for the comments everyone.
@Ged: Thanks for posting the letters. Moritz’s response seems a bit lacking, to put it mildly. It’ll be interesting to see if the editors bother replying.
@Israel: I see what you’re saying, but as Ged pointed out, that is more applicable to straight opinion pieces, rather than articles that purport to put forth factual information. If someone is playing fast and loose with the facts, I think it’s legitimate and important to ask them to back up their claims. Otherwise, things like “Experts predicted Apple would sell 1 million iPhones and they failed” soon become conventional wisdom, despite their lack of truth.
@leicaboy: To be fair, you’d need to show that Moritz gained financially from this in order to classify it as criminal, and I don’t think anyone has done that. At any rate, it certainly doesn’t need to be criminal to qualify as questionable reporting.
July 7th, 2007 at 1:50 am
[...] for the iPhone sales launch, take a minute and go read this post over at OneButtonMouse. Go ahead and read it, I’ll [...]
July 7th, 2007 at 1:50 am
As A journalist I must agree with Ged. Any time someone in a position of influence as anthony says [putting it mildly] plays fast and loose with the facts they should be taken to task. I can only liken ignoring such articles or coverage to standing in a room and having someone make racial and sexist jokes that demean and insult and saying nothing., or acting if nothing has been said. we must speak up. That being said i am a film critic and it is my belief that often if a film happens to be a hit and well received by the majority there will be some critics who take pride in being the ones to tear it down even if if the said film does merit praise. what is clear through all of the negative press or things said about the iphone is that most have to really reach to find flaw and almost completely ignore the phenomenon that is the iphone. Not everyone may like star wars but to say it is crap or that it should have made more money when it came out or it is insignificant as far as cinema goes is blatantly what the kids call being a hater.