Verizon cunningly avoids iPhone hype
Verizon iPhone sales not meeting expectations, coming in low? Not so says Big Red’s top dog and, in fact, it’s the best selling device in the carrier’s history, though you probably hadn’t noticed as the carrier has done everything it could to avoid generating buzz.
Wall Street Journal got Verizon CEO Daniel Mead to talk about iPhone sales, though he gave us only a single chewable number — 60 percent — which is the share of sales occurring online and that explains away the absence of lines at launch.
Understand now, you negative Nancies?
OK, he also said that the iPhone 4 is the best selling device in Verizon’s history. Further, because the carrier cleverly staggered the launch in order to improve customer experience, there was no need to wait in line and shortages just didn’t happen.
Out, damned hype!
Can you feel the iPhone excitement?
And, that’s a very cunning plan for avoiding customer discomfort as well as the huge volumes of nastily unpleasant buzz and hype AT&T usually generates.
“It was a conscious decision to spread the launch over three phases,” said Mead. “If we had not done online, you would have seen a much different flow in the pictures.”
Um, what flow in which pictures? Whatever, Verizon plans to double the number of stores that sell the iPhone, going from 4,000 to 8,000 not that consumers or the media will notice anything.
That said, if Verizon really did make great efforts to sanitize the iPhone launch of any excitement, buzz and hype, they must be fools…
What’s your take?
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