Regarding Apple Not Yet Announcing iPhone 5C Pre-Order Numbers

One never quite knows what drives the stock market, particularly when it comes to Apple, but the consensus is that Apple’s stock took a hit yesterday partly because the company didn’t release opening weekend sales numbers for the iPhone 5C.

Of course they didn’t. Apple is remarkably open financially compared to nearly all its competitors (e.g. Amazon has never once, not once, announced Kindle sales figures — and good luck getting Nexus sales figures out of Google, or a precise definition of an “Android activation”), but even Apple keeps much data to itself. Apple has never broken down by model number the sales of iPods or iPads. They’re not going to start now with the iPhone. They don’t want competitors to know the breakdown of 5C/5S sales. If we get a sales number announcement from Apple, it’ll come next week, after the 5S goes on sale for a weekend, and the figure announced will be that of all new iPhones sold. I bet.

★ Tuesday, 17 September 2013