According to this Bloomberg report, Walkley has been sloppy in his research. On the one hand, the report claims that Walkley reported that Nokia shipped 2,000,000 5185i phones to Verizon in 4Q:
The company said a report by Dain Rauscher Wessels analyst T. Michael Walkley, saying Nokia shipped Verizon Wireless 2,000,000 5185i phones in the fourth quarter and would ship the 6185i in the first quarter, was inaccurate.
However, the report goes on to state: "Walkley said his report is based on Nokia statements at a London analyst meeting last month, where executives said a majority of the 2 million 5185 phones went to Verizon Wireless."
I wonder if it occured to Walkley that there is a difference of meaning between the words "majority" and "all". He says that Nokia claimed the "majority" of the 2,000,000 5185i phones shipped in 4Q went to Verizon. This could mean that all 2,000,000 phones went to Verizon or as few as 1,000,001 phones. Both numbers would constitute a majority and fulfill the meaning of Nokia's statement. However, without more precise guidance from Nokia and thus without foundation, he has, according to Bloomberg, apparently presumed that all 2,000,000 phones went to Verizon. Naturally Verizon would dispute Walkley's (not Nokia's) claim publicly if it felt it's relationship with Nokia were being mischaracterized publicly; but that does not undercut Nokia's claim that it did in fact ship 2,000,000 5185i phones in 4Q. Nor does Verizon's statement contradict Nokia's assertion that a majority (an amount that could be as little as 1,000,001) of the 5185i phones shipped went to Verizon. If Bloomberg's reporting is correct, then Walkley simply misconstrued what Nokia said. In fact, Verizon thus appears to be correcting Walkley's report and not what Nokia told analysts last month. |
