Well EricL, I have no idea how you put that yellow sticker with 100 million on the CDG slide. Good trick.
Okay, so they got a bit excited, but I don't think I ever heard or read such numbers as coming from Irwin Jacobs who was the 70 million man from the beginning. I think later in the year he started talking as though it would be between 70m and 80m. That's total subscribers [not handsets sold].
There were 53m at the end of 1999 and they expected 70m until well into the year. I started out with wildly hopeful figures and got dragged down [in the absence of China and progress elsewhere] to 100m subscribers. But missed by a mile.
Meanwhile, GSM was rampant. Early last year, I had [originally - 1996 or 1997] expected CDMA monthly sales to exceed GSM monthly sales. Well, that tells you how wrong it's possible to be. I hadn't expected such rapid GSM sales though!
There should be about 80m subscribers at December Y2K, which isn't all that bad [in any other business, going from 50m to 80m customers would be considered quite good].
The lesson to learn is to listen closely to Irwin Jacobs. If I think he's wrong, I will listen again to what he said.
Mqurice
PS: Now that you mention it, I do recall that slide and something about a straight edge... |
