Apple's iOS mobile web share calls into question reports touting Android sales supremacy - Page 3

There's nothing questionable here. The MAJORITY of Android phones are cheap laggy shitty sub $100 phones (no contract) that are excruciatingly slow. They can never be used to surf the web or download any app. 

Let me offer another perspective. Many of these iOS vs. Android web stats are very unreliable. I'm not sure how NetMarketShare.com determines if something is Android. I do know that Akamai and Piwik both seriously botch device detection (Akamai counts several Android browsers as their desktop versions, and Piwik counts them as Safari). Apparently folks have difficulty writing working regex's for User Agent Strings.

This same User Agent string brokenness extends to web sites themselves. Far too many of them will give you the phone version of their site if they match "Android" in the browser string, regardless if you're using a phone or a tablet. This isn't too much of a problem on a 7" tablet in portrait mode, but it's a major problem on 10" tablets in landscape mode. Any site using WordPress' WPTouch plugin shows this behavior. Many web admins are fairly unresponsive to requests to fix their UA sniffing. Personally, I encounter this situation so often that I have a canned email I send asking admins to change their sites and providing reference documentation.

As you can imagine, it's really frustrating to get jumbo-size phone sites on 10" tablets. So many Android users just stop browsing the web on them or install a third-party browser that fakes a desktop User Agent string. Both of these will skew the stats.

So it has nothing to do with Android users being stupid or poor, or the devices being junky. It's very often a lack of attention to detail by sysadmins.

For reference: You can distinguish between an Android phone and a tablet by checking for the "Mobile" keyword in the User Agent string and redirecting to the mobile site only if it's present. This will work for the stock browser (and embedded WebViews), Chrome, and Firefox. 

Stock Android Browser: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/12/android-browser-user-agent-issues.html

Chrome for Android: https://developers.google.com/chrome/mobile/docs/user-agent
Firefox for Android: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Gecko_user_agent_string_reference#Android

Quote:

Originally Posted by xtacee1990 

There's nothing questionable here. The MAJORITY of Android phones are cheap laggy shitty sub $100 phones (no contract) that are excruciatingly slow. They can never be used to surf the web or download any app. 

Okay, you're saying that the sales figures are correct, and it's just the surfing is different.. so the thread's main article is wrong?   Look folks, we have to keep things straight.  The two main theories are based on:

• SALES - This thread's base article was based on the assumption that Android and iOS devices would have similar web usage, and therefore a large web usage difference must be evidence that the sales figures were incorrect:  "The fact that iOS is more than twice as popular on the web as all Android devices combined calls into question market statistics by research firms such as IDC..."

• WEB USAGE - Other posters like this one are saying that it's actually Android and iOS web usage that's radically different (which was the most recent claim of fansite articles before this one), not the sales figures.

01/31 - Here is the original IDC report, with its estimated WORLD tablet sales.

01/31 - Here is the CNN article which talked about the IDC report.

02/01 - Here is the second CNN article, referencing the Net Applications web report.

02/01 - Here is this thread's article, using the second CNN article as its source.

Re: User Agent Strings.  There's also the fact that the Silk server-assisted browser used by the Kindle Fire looks very similar to the one for a desktop running Safari 5.0.   Who knows if those are being counted correctly (if they're not, for example, then that would blow my theory about Fires not being used for surfing, but would explain their low web usage count.)

There's a lot of missing and/or bad data and assumptions, for sure. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by KDarling 

 

Okay, you're saying that the sales figures are correct, and it's just the surfing is different.. ....... blah blah...... There's a lot of missing and/or bad data and assumptions, for sure......

.... a problem which would be solved in one stroke if Android manufacturers put out sales and channel inventory numbers! And if Google would start reporting segment data for its Android-related revenue.

You Androiders keep avoiding the question: why do you think they keep avoiding the opportunity to shed light on something so simple, considering the news on market share for them, according to you all, is so good!?

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram 

 

.... a problem which would be solved in one stroke if Android manufacturers put out sales and channel inventory numbers! And if Google would start reporting segment data for its Android-related revenue.

 

You Androiders keep avoiding the question: why do you think they keep avoiding the opportunity to shed light on something so simple, considering the news on market share for them, according to you all, is so good!?

From all 500+ licensed Android product manufacturers??

Some with varying reporting periods and perhaps different methods of tracking channel inventory if they do so at all? And someone, who I assume you think should be Google, is tasked with aggregating each of the 500+ licensee manufacturing numbers collected on some specific day, then gather inventory channel numbers for hundreds (thousands?) of products numbers at thousands of distribution outlets as of that day too, somehow convincing them Google should have access to their business inventory. Easy-peesy.

So you're kidding, right, just forgot the /s tag?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gatorguy 

From all 500+ licensed Android product manufacturers??

 

Some with varying reporting periods and perhaps different methods of tracking channel inventory if they do so at all? And someone, who I assume you think should be Google, is tasked with aggregating each of the 500+ licensee manufacturing numbers collected on some specific day, then gather inventory channel numbers for hundreds (thousands?) of products numbers at thousands of distribution outlets as of that day too, somehow convincing them Google should have access to their business inventory. Easy-peesy.

 

So you're kidding, right, just forgot the /s tag?

Why am I not surprised at this comment.

Only in your peculiar way of thinking would you not see that the top four or five -- Samsung, LG, HTC, Huawei, Amazon -- would suffice.

Heck, I'd take just Samsung's numbers, since they're supposedly the most successful according to all sorts of guesstimates! 

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram 

Why am I not surprised at this comment.

 

Only in your peculiar way of thinking would you not see that the top four or five -- Samsung, LG, HTC, Huawei, Amazon -- would suffice.

 

Heck, I'd take just Samsung's numbers, since they're supposedly the most successful according to all sorts of guesstimates! 

So if you were to guess, how many retailers, service providers and/or distributors over dozens of countries would have to coordinate and report their current inventory to each applicable manufacturer (Samsung, Huawai, etc.) as of a specific day, who would than report those to Google combined with their shipped numbers for a few hundred unique devices at that same specific point in time to satisfy your curiosity? 5 thousand? 10 thousand? More? And they go to that effort why? 

Either you're not serious or you're simply not thinking today IMO. Why isn't a report of unique device activations plenty close,  particularly since you've said you don't really care if every device is counted as long as the biggest 4 or 5 report channel numbers. 

EDIT: Here's the list of Samsung authorized resellers.. . in just the US!:

http://www.samsung.com/us/peaceofmind/authorized_resellers.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael Scrip 

MY THEORY: Samsung only officially reports sales of their flagship Galaxy S series... because they are afraid to report that their best selling phones across the globe are actually crappy $80 phones.

"We've sold 100 million flagship phones"   makes a better headline than   "we've sold 300 million garbage phones"

That's no different than Apple lumping all it's iPhone sales together regardless of model is it? But you could absolutely be correct that Samsung would prefer as a rule not to break out sales by specific model so as not to reveal too much to competitors. Who does?

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram 


Who cares about the silly links you keep posting, pretending to be serious.

If you don't know what your channel inventory is doing, you have no clue about our ability to sell your products. You don't know how to price, how to promote, how to advertise, how to manage your mix..... I could go on with such Business 101 stuff that perhaps eludes you.

There are only two possibilities: Samsung is a naive, unsophisticated company when it comes to marketing, distribution, and data collection/management, or they're embarrassed to admit facts.

So you're only curious about Samsung sales and inventory then, but OK with Google activation numbers being an accurate picture of the Android market. That's different.

There's a few reasons Samsung would choose be less specific than you like. You've named just two possibilities. The one they mentioned when they stopped doing so is that because of Apple lawsuits they were no longer going to offer specific numbers. Valid reason? Dunno.

It could instead be for competitive reasons, the same as Apple's reason to decline specifics on model sales. Maybe they're just lying and there really isn't much profit in their smartphone business and they'll eventually be caught by their stockholders. Or maybe they really do sell more smartphones than Apple whether you want to believe it or not.

Are their stockholders demanding more detail? If not then what would be the benefit to Samsung in satisfying your curiosity? I can't think of any.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram 

 

.... a problem which would be solved in one stroke if Android manufacturers put out sales and channel inventory numbers! 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gatorguy 

From all 500+ licensed Android product manufacturers??

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram 

Only in your peculiar way of thinking would you not see that the top four or five -- Samsung, LG, HTC, Huawei, Amazon -- would suffice.

Heck, I'd take just Samsung's numbers, since they're supposedly the most successful according to all sorts of guesstimates! 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gatorguy 

So if you were to guess, how many retailers, service providers and/or distributors over dozens of countries would have to coordinate and report their current inventory to each applicable manufacturer (Samsung, Huawai, etc.) as of a specific day, who would than report those to Google combined with their shipped numbers for a few hundred unique devices at that same specific point in time to satisfy your curiosity? 5 thousand? 10 thousand? More? And they go to that effort why? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram 

There are only two possibilities: Samsung is a naive, unsophisticated company when it comes to marketing, distribution, and data collection/management, or they're embarrassed to admit facts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gatorguy 

So you're only curious about Samsung sales and inventory then, but OK with Google activation numbers being an accurate picture of the Android market. That's different.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram 


You ran out of arguments, so now you're simply making up stuff? That's a new low, even for you. Pathetic.

Google's 'activation' numbers are a frickin' joke.

No now you've come full circle and gone back to your problem being Google activation numbers.

So why all the noise about you'd be happy with the numbers if just four or five Android manufacturers would publish sales and channel inventory numbers, or even if just Samsung would? And you want to say I'm the one making stuff up. . .

So what would really be enough to prove to you Google's activation numbers either do or don't paint a fairly accurate picture of the Android market so far? Apparently it's not only the top four or five or "even just Samsung" reporting sales and channel. So it must be just as I originally posted. You'd only be satisfied (maybe) if over over 500 manufacturers were to coordinate sales and inventory numbers across 10's of thousands of individual re-sellers for a snapshot of the market as of some unified date. Good luck with that.

Like I said the first time, easy-peesy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gatorguy 

There's a few reasons Samsung would choose be less specific than you like. You've named just two possibilities. The one they mentioned when they stopped doing so is that because of Apple lawsuits they were no longer going to offer specific numbers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram 


Cite?

Absolutely. From July 2011 when they stopped reporting phone numbers.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904888304576475693866644746.html

SEOUL—Samsung Electronics Co. on Friday said it would stop disclosing sales figures and forecasts for its mobile phones and tablet computers, a step it attributed to business risks and that analysts said was probably due to its continuing legal battle with Apple Inc.

Samsung, the world's largest technology manufacturer by sales, has long been one of the most guarded companies in the electronics industry. The disclosure of cellphone shipments had been one of the rare morsels of product data that Samsung provided with its quarterly earnings announcements.

But when the company released second-quarter results Friday, the cellphone data were missing. And in a conference call with analysts, executives announced a "new information policy" that would reveal less data about cellphones and tablet computers.

"As competition intensifies, there are increased risks that the information we provide may adversely affect our own businesses," Robert Yi, Samsung's chief of investor relations, said on the call. He declined a request for further explanation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jragosta  But more importantly, when Samsung was forced to release numbers in the trial, they turned out to be much lower than all the estimates that were flying around. I believe that the analysts consistently estimate on the high side.

For example:
http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/151852/court-docs-reveal-samsung-sold-21m-phones-1-4m-tablets-worth-8b-in-us-since-2010
At the time, estimates were that Samsung was selling 35 M smartphones per year. They actually sold 21 M in two years.

Incorrect JR. I already pointed out your error, but apparently it's not convenient to your argument so you've chosen to ignore it?

http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/155747/apple-overtakes-samsung-as-top-u-s-mobile-phone-vendor-for-first-time-in-q4-2012#post_2269472

From the AI article itself that you linked:

"It should be noted that not all of Samsung's product lineup is represented in the figures, only those which are alleged as infringing Apple's patents."

The 21M number you toss around applied only to those specific handsets that Apple brought suit against. That was hardly the entire line of Samsung phones available for sale. You knew that, or at least should have if you read the article..

Quote:

Originally Posted by jragosta 


Your interpretation is wrong. Samsung did not attribute it to the Apple lawsuit as you claimed. Samsung attributed it to 'business risks'. It was the analysts who said it was due to the lawsuit - and no one in their right mind puts much faith in their assertions.

You're quite right, Samsung themselves did not blame it on Apple. It was business sources who came up with that association.  No doubt they noted the fact Apple had filed suit their major US lawsuit citing Samsung smartphones and tablets just two months prior, during that specific Samsung quarter where the decision was made to no longer publish numbers. Probably just happenstance though, right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram 


Heh heh. At this point, the wall I am sitting next to makes more sense than your incoherent ramblings.

Look, the point is simple. Samsung claims to sell a lot. The only 'evidence' we have for that are guesstimates put out by consulting firms. Data on collateral items such as profits and web visits, combined with lack of actual audited data on sales tells us that they're making some stuff up. Most likely, they're selling cheap stuff to Indians and Chinese. (There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.)

People like you have a tough time accepting these simple facts. So all you can do is dissemble, misrepresent, obfuscate, make feeble excuses, and when ll else fails, try to change the topic. Fail.

So now it's all back to just Samsung again and really not Google activation nuumbers??  Somewhere in there I'm sure you think you've proven something, or found some easy solution to determining Android market share. I don't think you really did.

I think we're at the end of any beneficial back and forth on the suggestion you originally made: "a problem which would be solved in one stroke if Android manufacturers put out sales and channel inventory numbers". By now everyone is getting confused.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram 


As usual, when caught out, you dissemble, by talking about 'business associates' (um... these are analysts..... I wonder what kind of 'business associates' to Samsung they are) or 'happenstance' (yeah.... sure...must be true because Gatorguy said so....)

Just so people know, here's what you said: There's a few reasons Samsung would choose be less specific than you like. You've named just two possibilities. The one they mentioned when they stopped doing so is that because of Apple lawsuits they were no longer going to offer specific numbers. Valid reason? Dunno. It could instead be for competitive reasons, the same as Apple's reason to decline specifics on model sales. Maybe they're just lying and there really isn't much profit in their smartphone business and they'll eventually be caught by their stockholders. Or maybe they really do sell more smartphones than Apple whether you want to believe it or not.

Hmm, "as usual" you've misstated what I said (I hope we never tire of "as usual" as it's just so effective). I never mentioned "business associates" but no matter.  Anyway, I added the rest of my quote that was inadvertently left out.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anantksundaram 


Actually, I agree, you used the vacuous term 'business sources,' not 'business associates.' My apologies.

Fair enough. My apologies to you as well if I offended you.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jragosta 


And, of course, you're ignoring the fact that almost all of Samsung's biggest sellers were included in Apple's lawsuit - certainly almost everything that could be called a Smartphone.

Even with a few minor handsets not included, how do you explain that the estimates were 35 M per year while the actual numbers were 10.5 M per year?

No, you're ignoring the fact it didn't prove what you say it did, even after being corrected about it more than once. It wasn't my claim to begin with (and where the heck is your 35M average per year figure coming from?)

Can we dispose of that little bit of JR FUD too now, throwing it in the same garbage bin as "all the Android feature phones being marketed and/or sold"?

StatCounter is out today with their latest mobile web usage statistics and they serve as evidence that KDarling is correct in surmising that the differnce in web usage comes down to tablets. StatCounter doesn't include tablet usage in it's numbers:

http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-ww-monthly-201201-201301

"With Nokia’s share of mobile internet usage down 15.52% from 37.67% last January to just 22.15% this year, Apple was able to move into the number one position for the first time ever despite experiencing a decline of 2.81%. Apple took 25.86% of mobile internet usage in January, down from 28.67% last year. Nokia was also bumped to third position with Samsung gaining 7.85% to move into the number two spot. However, it’s important to point out that StatCounter doesn’t include iPads in its definition of mobile devices.

As for mobile OS, StatCounter has at Android 37% of the market in January up from 33.19% in December. In comparison, iPhone and iPod held 25.85% of the global OS share, up from 23.26% in December. Keeping in mind that StatCounter doesn’t include iPads in these stats, we take also take a look at a report for January from NetApplications (pictured below) that has iOS with iPads included at 60.56% of the market during the month"

quote from 9to5 article.

Contrary to popular sentiment at AI, Android smartphones appear to use the internet substantially more than iOS iPods/iPhones, not less.