Regular readers, and you know who you are, may recall my post in June in which I questioned the wisdom of Apple’s marvelously successful six-month publicity campaign in support of the iPhone. Yes, it built enormous amounts of awareness, but it also provided a huge window for competitors and pundits to challenge the device and its appeal even before it had been seen.
How did this work out?
When AT & T announced that 146,000 iPhones were activated in the first days of availability, Apple stock took a hit. Imagine! I can tell you that if our company had sold 146,000 units of a $600 item in a few days, there would be a celebration for the ages.
But the expectations pegged sales projections around 500,000. Hence, one of the most auspicious consumer electronics introductions of the decade gets labeled "disappointing." And even Apple’s announcement yesterday that they had actually sold 270,000 during the period didn’t restore the luster.
You should know that I’m still betting on the iPhone to be huge. But I stick to my premise – that Apple loyalists, fanatics that they are, would have bought the same number of units in the same amount of time with merely a few weeks notice, and the company would have been spared the Monday-morning quarterbacking. Of course, I could be wrong …
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