This is why I excluded high demand and new products. New products are shipped in higher quantities to meet retailer demand (ever been in a store that has exactl

This is why I excluded high demand and new products. New products are shipped in higher quantities to meet retailer demand (ever been in a store that has exactly one new item?). But once the supply pipeline is flowing its much easier to estimate demand and produce enough to meet it. This is something that Apple has been terrible at despite great marketing. But all companies will parade the numbers that show them in the best light. Samsung isn't producing a lot of tablets just to dump them in landfills and retailers aren't stocking more than they can realistically sell in <1 months time. For the retailer it ties up money and floorspace. Apple owns all it's stores and can tell you exactly how many iPhones they have sold, they won't tell you how many Apple TVs they've sold even though they know that number. Samsung might be able to tell you how many tablets sold. But numbers shipped is more palatable to investors and developers. If they were getting a lot of returns (and early android tablets were) they wouldn't exactly parade them out.