Apple’s iPhone Hype Fallacy
According to a report from iSuppli, Apple has sold less than a million units, but enough to capture 1.8% of the market share for the period after its release. They note:
iSuppli’s U.S. Consumer Panel Survey revealed the two models of the iPhone now on the market outsold all smart phones in July, including the Blackberry series, the entire Palm portfolio, and any individual Motorola, Nokia, Samsung or other smart phone model from a branded service provider. The iPhone’s U.S. sales in July were equal to those of the most popular feature phone, LG’s Chocolate.
Although Ars Technica doesn’t believe Apple can meet iSuppli’s high guidance for iPhone sales, they are still optimistic. Of course, the others who have chimed in on this Apple sales report–Barrons, Cybernet, Into Mobile, Slippery Brick, and World of Apple–support iSuppli’s overhyped press release and optimistic conclusions.
See, the iSuppli report is a constricting expectations fallacy, where the “prize winning” PR categories that iPhone sales could fall into–say “Top selling cell phone model”–are restricted by adding arbitrary clauses until the statement becomes true–say “Top selling cell phone model among 35 year old white males in the last month in the urban US.” As you can see, this robs the press release of honest power. However, because the wording of the statement is unambiguous and strong, it still makes a strong positive impression, even though it actually says very little.
Apple was expected to sell and activate millions of iPhones their first month; they didn’t. This “press report” is just riding the Apple hype train.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2007 at 6:19 pm and is tagged with ars technica, branded service provider, apple sales, little apple, motorola nokia, apple support, feature phone, iphone, capture 1, panel survey, isuppli, phone model, s sales, cybernet, fallacy, smart phone, smart phones, clauses, hype, market share. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.
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