Respected analyst Neil Cybart persuasively calls IDC numbers "embarrassingly" wrong, and here's more from an article that discusses Cybart's refutation as well as an overall alleged pattern of intentionally misleading estimates from IDC.
IDC data is much more suspect than "historically underestimating iPhone sales." Remember, no other phone manufacturer reports their actual sales figures so, ALL of its data is suspect and unverifiable.
IDC's subset of publicly reported data isn't designed to give away valuable free information as a public service. Market research groups sell their reports to companies for $10,000 or more, so when they issue free bits of public data, journalists should review these reports with some healthy skepticism and consider why they're getting free data that tells such compelling stories.
This is particularly the case because those stories are often wrong to the point of clearly not being just a mistake. There's a history of market data firms releasing bad data coached to make winners look like losers and losers look like winners.
In fact, that's a primary goal of these groups, as history shows beyond a shadow of a doubt. These companies even admit that they work, not to enlighten the public with free data, but to help their paying clients with "influencing consumer behavior and buying preferences."
We've caught IDC and other market research groups reporting estimated numbers that didn't align with Apple's actual data before, including massive underestimations of Mac sales as part of an overall misleading history of reporting in PC sales and of course in tablet sales."
Before you say otherwise, yes, it includes smartphone numbers: 206,000,000.
I don’t think you read it, or you sent the wrong link ? All I see are revenue and some “shipped” numbers ?
In summary, take 'shipped' as 'sold' and whichever way you interpret things, the numbers are given and have been given for years.
In effect shipped is sold. When Target, or Walmart, or Orange, or ATT orders phones they pay for them in advance, or on receipt, or make arrangements to do so on a contracted and defined schedule. That's a sale. That's how most public companies record a sale took place and Apple is no exception.
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