Yesterday, the internet went crazy over the news that Samsung had surpassed Apple as the world’s leading smartphone vendor. Samsung said this during there Q3 financial conference call. The company said that they had shipped around 28 million smartphones and saw a 40 percent increase in its shipments during the third quarter. On the other hand, last month Apple said they had shipped 17 million smartphones in the same period.
Well hate to tell ya Samsung fans, the problem with these numbers is that there is no data to actually back up the claim. Wait a minute! Does anyone see a problem here? Samsung didn’t provide specific numbers. So, how the heck can anyone assume that shipments jumped 40 percent? To top it off,Strategy Analytics “estimates” sales of 28 million devices.
Where the hell they got that number from is beyond me. So far, every single story I have read has reported falsely by linking to the Strategy Analytics report. Let’s take a step back and look at the report.
According to Strategy Analytics, Apple sold 17 million iPhones, which is equal to a 21 percent growth rate over the same quarter last year. See the problem? Apple “sold” 17 million iPhones and Samsung “shipped” an unverified number that Strategy Analytics made up.
What people don’t seem to understand is that there’s a *huge* different between shipped numbers and sold numbers. Based on it, coming to a conclusion that one company is beating another is ridiculous. It just isn’t possible with such numbers. A research firm should know better.
I’m sure that Samsung sold a lot of phones, but until they release actual numbers like Apple, Strategy Analytics’s report is meaningless. Samsung could have shipped 100 millions phones, but that doesn’t tell us how many they have actually sold. In the end, selling phones is what generates revenue. Not shipping.
Thanks to The Loop for discovering this first!
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