I'm always slightly curious about these when they appear, when they say they're selling X amount per month, do they mean they've sold X amount per month that are in consumers hands, or X amount per month where so many are in consumer hands, so many are in retail supply chains? Same goes for Apple, but to a larger extent they manage sales through their own channels.
Obviously N7 is delayed shipment in many places so I imagine a lot are in peoples hands, still curious.
The blogs like to make a distinction between the two numbers, but realistically there isn't one except for in extreme cases like the HP touchpad. Retail sales might happen a month after wholesale sales, but they are still sales. If a retailer isn't selling it's stock, it isn't going to re-order and that will be reflected in wholesale numbers.
Well, the difference was big enough for Apple iPad sales last quarter that they shipped 28% more YoY, while sell-through increased about 44%. The difference was due to inventory increases last year, compared to inventory decreases this year.
Do you think Retailers are stocking up on phones that aren't selling? That each month, fifty thousand electronic devices are stored in stockrooms, never to be seen again?
The units sold to consumers closely resembles the tail of current shipped units, just delayed a bit; the larger the number and the bigger ticket the item the closer those curves are.
It's a fair question, as channel stuffing is not unheard of. The HP TouchPad, for instance, shipped far more units than were sold to customers. At one point Best Buy sat on over 200 000 unsold TouchPads that were returned to HP and eventually priced at just $99 each to get rid of the inventory.
With that said, I think the correlation between shipping numbers and sales for the Nexus 4 is probably close, considering the clear demand for the phone.
Occasionally yeah, retail stores will buy stock that may end up dead. Obviously not at the moment as they can't keep them in stock, I'm just curious whether either company is showing sales figures including the retail supply chain bought ones as well.
Obviously N7 is delayed shipment in many places so I imagine a lot are in peoples hands, still curious.