Samsung ships 5 million Galaxy Notes, but who cares about ‘shipped’ numbers

Macworld:

Samsung Electronics has shipped 5 million units of its “smart notepad”, the Galaxy Note, surpassing most expectations, according to analysts.

How can shipping 5 million units possible surpass anyone’s expectations? That is not the number of Galaxy Notes sold, that’s just the number that Samsung managed to get out of its factory.

Samsung could ship 100 million Galaxy Notes and have them sit in a warehouse somewhere — that doesn’t mean they sold 100 million. I’m never impressed with shipped numbers because they don’t mean anything.

Update: A number of sites are updating their stories noting that Samsung told them its 5 million sales, not shipments.