Most analysts who weighed in two weeks ago took at face value Apple’s statement that pre-orders for the iPhone 6S were “very strong” around the world, that online orders for the iPhone 6S Plus were “exceptionally strong” and that the new iPhones were “on pace to beat last year’s 10 million first weekend record.”
Not Pacific Crest’s Andy Hargreaves.
“Apple’s statement,” he warned clients a week before the new iPhones shipped, “appears to be a statement on supply. Relative to demand, the preponderance of data points suggests that demand for the iPhone 6s is lower than it was for the iPhone 6, possibly meaningfully so. This includes Google search data, device shipment times, third-party surveys, a lack of comments from carriers, and a lack of quantitative comment on pre-orders in Apple’s statement.”
It was the first time I’d seen an analyst offer a Google search and two lacks of comment as reasons to call BS on Tim Cook’s Apple. I promised to revisit the matter when and if Apple disclosed first weekend sales.
Apple disclosed on Monday. Hargreaves was wrong. Apple sold 13 million new iPhones in three days, 30% more than last year.
Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple (AAPL) coverage at fortune.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.
