How long are you going to hang onto these two outdated myths? We've saying the same two things about smartphones and Samsung keeps surging. If Samsung is only shipping and not selling, where is the write down in their reports?
If they are shipping, where are the actual numbers? Sammy makes a whole lot of phones. They can ship 1MM of one model and then end-of-life it a year later and ship 1MM of a new model. There is no drop in absolute terms but compare model to model shipments and you'll see a decline.
Guess this is the old shipped vs sold chestnut. Every iPad shipped is essentially sold, you can't say the same for everyone else.
I want to know where this imaginary warehouse is that Samsung, Amazon, HTC, etc. apparently ship devices too and store for eternity, while the world only buys iPhones and iPads.
If that is the case then this is the best business model ever. You can just ship devices, never have to sell anything to anyone and make billions of dollars. Brilliant! I hope Samsung patents this before Apple does.
If you listen to the people on this site you would think Samsung is competing with UPS as they only ever just ship stuff.
I want to know where this imaginary warehouse is that Samsung, Amazon, HTC, etc. apparently ship devices too and store for eternity, while the world only buys iPhones and iPads.
If that is the case then this is the best business model ever. You can just ship devices, never have to sell anything to anyone and make billions of dollars. Brilliant! I hope Samsung patents this before Apple does.
If you listen to the people on this site you would think Samsung is competing with UPS as they only ever just ship stuff.
I don't think that's the issue. While a few people are making a distinction between 'shipped' and 'sold', I don't think that's the issue.
The real issue is that we have Apple's actual reported shipments vs numbers that some analyst dreams up for everyone else. The estimated numbers have no bearing on reality. Remember the analyst who estimated that Apple would ship 65 M cell phones next quarter? Or the Apple/Samsung trial where Samsung was ordered to release actual sales figures - and they were far, far lower than the estimates that all the analysts and market intelligence firms like IDC were using?
One of the most interesting things about this whole situation is that the market intelligence firms and analysts apparently don't care about accuracy. After Samsung's sales information was released in court, you'd have expected a flurry of revisions and/or companies re-evaluating their methodology. That never happened - they just continued doing the same thing they had been doing for years, even though it was demonstrably wrong.
In short, there is nothing that suggests that these types of estimates have any connection to reality.
The problem with these conclusions is IDC uses two different sets of numbers. For Apple, it uses actual sales to customers. This is because that is what Apple reports. For companies like Samsung, it uses product shipped because that is what Samsung reports. When you count product shipped, a certain percentage of the product is in transit, sitting on shelves, etc.
Add in the fact that Apple products tend to have longer life spans after being sold - what percentage of iPads ever sold are still in use (have not been destroyed or broken etc) compared to how many non-Apple tablets have been trashed.
This is also a worldwide tracking report. I think that Apple iPads are perceived as pricey in the some parts of the world and Samsung products might also be more readily available in more outlets than Apple's especially in asia. The longer life spans of Apple products actually makes them less expensive to own than other similar products which have built in obsolescence. I have yet to see any non-Apple 10" tablets in the wild in the US although I have seen a few Samsungs being used in Central America. 7" tablets I have seen quite a few in the US though.
I want to know where this imaginary warehouse is that Samsung, Amazon, HTC, etc. apparently ship devices too and store for eternity, while the world only buys iPhones and iPads.
If that is the case then this is the best business model ever. You can just ship devices, never have to sell anything to anyone and make billions of dollars. Brilliant! I hope Samsung patents this before Apple does.
If you listen to the people on this site you would think Samsung is competing with UPS as they only ever just ship stuff.
The studies aren't legitimate because the methodology is flawed. It isn't relevant to point that out?
The problem stems from the fact that Apple reports product sales to customers and everybody else reports product shipped from the manufacturer. So if an Apple iPad is sitting in a Walmart or Target or wherever, Apple doesn't count that as a sale until it is sold to a customer. Everybody else counts product sitting on store shelves as a sale. So if a Samsung product has shipped from the manufacturer to the same Walmart or Target and is sitting on the shelve, Samsung (and everybody else) is counting its product as sold whereas Apple is not.
I hope for your sake you can see how the difference in reporting styles for each company can make it impossible to determine market share. Take for instance, HP when it shipped millions of its WebOS Tablets to stores. It counted those as sales. However, they were sitting on shelves, and HP had to have a fire sale to actually get them to customers. If you would have viewed HP's shipped numbers before the fire sale with Apple's sold numbers, you might falsely conclude HP was making a dent in the market.
I just read another day that a third of Android tablets selling "worldwide" is from Amazon's which is US only. Go figures.
Amazon sales shouldn't even be counted as Android because Amazon forked the OS (making it it's own) and it isn't allowed to use the Android trademark in selling its product.
The problem stems from the fact that Apple reports product sales to customers and everybody else reports product shipped from the manufacturer. So if an Apple iPad is sitting in a Walmart or Target or wherever, Apple doesn't count that as a sale until it is sold to a customer. Everybody else counts product sitting on store shelves as a sale.
Incorrect. Apple counted a sale when the revenue was recognized. That would have been when Wal-Mart, Best Buy or whoever paid for the product. The fact it's still sitting on a shelf or in a warehouse doesn't impact Apple's reported "sales".
You're getting things confused with another figure that's reported outside of Apple's official audited financial results: Sell-thru estimates.
Incorrect. Apple counted a sale when the revenue was recognized. That would have been when Wal-Mart, Best Buy or whoever paid for the product. The fact it's still sitting on a shelf or in a warehouse doesn't impact Apple's reported "sales".
You're getting things confused with another figure that's reported outside of Apple's official audited financial results: Sell-thru estimates.
I thought Apple used new activations. Also don't large retailers have like 30 days to pay for product. Theoretically Best Buy could sell out of a newly launched product before the invoice was due such as when Apple releases opening weekend sales.
I thought Apple used new activations. Also don't large retailers have like 30 days to pay for product. Theoretically Best Buy could sell out of a newly launched product before the invoice was due such as when Apple releases opening weekend sales.
Google uses activations because it' the only thing they can know. Apple uses sales but it's not necessarily sales to the end user. When it comes to their online and B&M stores it is sales to the end user but when it comes to their retail partners it's as GG states.
One difference with Apple compared to other vendors is Apple's position in the market affords them a great deal of control. They can get up front payments and contracts that will not allow them to return unsold merchandise save for any damaged product. Other vendors don't have that leverage as they don't have the popularity or sales.
Apple counting an item sold to a retailer is inherently different than vendors using the short term goal of channel stuffing where they announced shipped items that are excessively off from any possible number of actual sales. One common method is to give a large retailer a discount for "buying" x-many units which are then shipped to the retailer who will hold them. If they sell great, if not, they can send them back at a certain time frame, usually on the vendor's dime. It's not illegal but it's certainly lacks transparency in business which is why shipped is always a suspect term as opposed to a sale.
The problem stems from the fact that Apple reports product sales to customers and everybody else reports product shipped from the manufacturer. So if an Apple iPad is sitting in a Walmart or Target or wherever, Apple doesn't count that as a sale until it is sold to a customer.
An all too common internet myth. Read their SEC-10K filing.
Apple counts a sale:
when an item is sold AND delivered to an end user from one of their own stores (online or brick) (*), or
when payment from a retailer is assured and title transferred, which is usually the moment they ship the unit.
Interestingly, Samsung's SEC filing says they don't count the second kind of sale until an item is _delivered_ to a retailer.
Both companies apparently account for returns separately (i.e. they don't get subtracted from the sales).
(*) Apple's "delivered" requirement in this case, is why presale numbers are different from sale numbers. For example, when Apple announces the number of presales of a new device, analysts pay attention. That's because the units ordered from Apple itself are not counted as sales until they actually reach the customer. So later when Apple announces official "sales", plus we know that many presale shipments are delayed, then the analysts can estimate how many more units have NOT been counted as sales YET, even if paid for.
If we take these numbers for fact (I won't get involved in that debate), Apple has nothing to worry about at this point. Apple's increase in sales of 7.8 M units is larger than the increase in anyone else's sales, including the Other category. Percentages of sales should only be compared for Apple's growth percentage vs. total market growth percentage. While Apple's gain is lower than overall market growth, that is to be expected as multiple new players enter and flood the market. There will be an equilibrium eventually and so long as Apple continues spec bumps and design revisions, I don't imagine they will fare poorly unless another player can somehow disrupt the market (and history shows other players haven't).
Find all the silverlinings you want. Be as selective with available data as you like. But the tablet industry is morphing away from a single gorilla market.
Find all the silverlinings you want. Be as selective with available data as you like. But the tablet industry is morphing away from a single gorilla market.
Well, when combined use of Android tablets gets over 10%, you let us know.
Find all the silverlinings you want. Be as selective with available data as you like. But the tablet industry is morphing away from a single gorilla market.
Well, when combined use of Android tablets gets over 10%, you let us know.
Are you reading a different report than the one on this page?
Samsung is already at 15.1% market share according to the article. People don't just buy an Android tablet and then toss it, still in the box, into the nearest trash bin on the way out of the store. I think they probably take them home and use them.
Samsung is already at 15.1% market share according to the article. People don't just buy an Android tablet and then toss it, still in the box, into the nearest trash bin on the way out of the store. I think they probably take them home and use them.
Samsung is already at 15.1% market share according to the article. People don't just buy an Android tablet and then toss it, still in the box, into the nearest trash bin on the way out of the store. I think they probably take them home and use them.
Why doesn't use share reflect that?
By "use" I take it to mean you are referring to web browser statistics?
That has been debated in many threads but is not addressed in this article. Personally I think the disparity is more about price and that typical Android users of lower income brackets do not have WiFi access in the same abundance as the more affluent iPad owners.
It seems you are trying to argue that Apple has more than 43.6% market share stated in this report and that the data here is entirely bogus.
Could a portion of that be that often Android users use alternate user agents in their browsers, thereby appearing as computer users instead of tablet users?
Comments
If they are shipping, where are the actual numbers? Sammy makes a whole lot of phones. They can ship 1MM of one model and then end-of-life it a year later and ship 1MM of a new model. There is no drop in absolute terms but compare model to model shipments and you'll see a decline.
Quote:
Originally Posted by saarek
Guess this is the old shipped vs sold chestnut. Every iPad shipped is essentially sold, you can't say the same for everyone else.
I want to know where this imaginary warehouse is that Samsung, Amazon, HTC, etc. apparently ship devices too and store for eternity, while the world only buys iPhones and iPads.
If that is the case then this is the best business model ever. You can just ship devices, never have to sell anything to anyone and make billions of dollars. Brilliant! I hope Samsung patents this before Apple does.
If you listen to the people on this site you would think Samsung is competing with UPS as they only ever just ship stuff.
I don't think that's the issue. While a few people are making a distinction between 'shipped' and 'sold', I don't think that's the issue.
The real issue is that we have Apple's actual reported shipments vs numbers that some analyst dreams up for everyone else. The estimated numbers have no bearing on reality. Remember the analyst who estimated that Apple would ship 65 M cell phones next quarter? Or the Apple/Samsung trial where Samsung was ordered to release actual sales figures - and they were far, far lower than the estimates that all the analysts and market intelligence firms like IDC were using?
One of the most interesting things about this whole situation is that the market intelligence firms and analysts apparently don't care about accuracy. After Samsung's sales information was released in court, you'd have expected a flurry of revisions and/or companies re-evaluating their methodology. That never happened - they just continued doing the same thing they had been doing for years, even though it was demonstrably wrong.
In short, there is nothing that suggests that these types of estimates have any connection to reality.
The problem with these conclusions is IDC uses two different sets of numbers. For Apple, it uses actual sales to customers. This is because that is what Apple reports. For companies like Samsung, it uses product shipped because that is what Samsung reports. When you count product shipped, a certain percentage of the product is in transit, sitting on shelves, etc.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lilgto64
Add in the fact that Apple products tend to have longer life spans after being sold - what percentage of iPads ever sold are still in use (have not been destroyed or broken etc) compared to how many non-Apple tablets have been trashed.
This is also a worldwide tracking report. I think that Apple iPads are perceived as pricey in the some parts of the world and Samsung products might also be more readily available in more outlets than Apple's especially in asia. The longer life spans of Apple products actually makes them less expensive to own than other similar products which have built in obsolescence. I have yet to see any non-Apple 10" tablets in the wild in the US although I have seen a few Samsungs being used in Central America. 7" tablets I have seen quite a few in the US though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by malta
I want to know where this imaginary warehouse is that Samsung, Amazon, HTC, etc. apparently ship devices too and store for eternity, while the world only buys iPhones and iPads.
If that is the case then this is the best business model ever. You can just ship devices, never have to sell anything to anyone and make billions of dollars. Brilliant! I hope Samsung patents this before Apple does.
If you listen to the people on this site you would think Samsung is competing with UPS as they only ever just ship stuff.
The studies aren't legitimate because the methodology is flawed. It isn't relevant to point that out?
The problem stems from the fact that Apple reports product sales to customers and everybody else reports product shipped from the manufacturer. So if an Apple iPad is sitting in a Walmart or Target or wherever, Apple doesn't count that as a sale until it is sold to a customer. Everybody else counts product sitting on store shelves as a sale. So if a Samsung product has shipped from the manufacturer to the same Walmart or Target and is sitting on the shelve, Samsung (and everybody else) is counting its product as sold whereas Apple is not.
I hope for your sake you can see how the difference in reporting styles for each company can make it impossible to determine market share. Take for instance, HP when it shipped millions of its WebOS Tablets to stores. It counted those as sales. However, they were sitting on shelves, and HP had to have a fire sale to actually get them to customers. If you would have viewed HP's shipped numbers before the fire sale with Apple's sold numbers, you might falsely conclude HP was making a dent in the market.
Quote:
Originally Posted by matrix07
I just read another day that a third of Android tablets selling "worldwide" is from Amazon's which is US only. Go figures.
Amazon sales shouldn't even be counted as Android because Amazon forked the OS (making it it's own) and it isn't allowed to use the Android trademark in selling its product.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TBell
The problem stems from the fact that Apple reports product sales to customers and everybody else reports product shipped from the manufacturer. So if an Apple iPad is sitting in a Walmart or Target or wherever, Apple doesn't count that as a sale until it is sold to a customer. Everybody else counts product sitting on store shelves as a sale.
Incorrect. Apple counted a sale when the revenue was recognized. That would have been when Wal-Mart, Best Buy or whoever paid for the product. The fact it's still sitting on a shelf or in a warehouse doesn't impact Apple's reported "sales".
You're getting things confused with another figure that's reported outside of Apple's official audited financial results: Sell-thru estimates.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatorguy
Incorrect. Apple counted a sale when the revenue was recognized. That would have been when Wal-Mart, Best Buy or whoever paid for the product. The fact it's still sitting on a shelf or in a warehouse doesn't impact Apple's reported "sales".
You're getting things confused with another figure that's reported outside of Apple's official audited financial results: Sell-thru estimates.
I thought Apple used new activations. Also don't large retailers have like 30 days to pay for product. Theoretically Best Buy could sell out of a newly launched product before the invoice was due such as when Apple releases opening weekend sales.
Google uses activations because it' the only thing they can know. Apple uses sales but it's not necessarily sales to the end user. When it comes to their online and B&M stores it is sales to the end user but when it comes to their retail partners it's as GG states.
One difference with Apple compared to other vendors is Apple's position in the market affords them a great deal of control. They can get up front payments and contracts that will not allow them to return unsold merchandise save for any damaged product. Other vendors don't have that leverage as they don't have the popularity or sales.
Apple counting an item sold to a retailer is inherently different than vendors using the short term goal of channel stuffing where they announced shipped items that are excessively off from any possible number of actual sales. One common method is to give a large retailer a discount for "buying" x-many units which are then shipped to the retailer who will hold them. If they sell great, if not, they can send them back at a certain time frame, usually on the vendor's dime. It's not illegal but it's certainly lacks transparency in business which is why shipped is always a suspect term as opposed to a sale.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TBell
The problem stems from the fact that Apple reports product sales to customers and everybody else reports product shipped from the manufacturer. So if an Apple iPad is sitting in a Walmart or Target or wherever, Apple doesn't count that as a sale until it is sold to a customer.
An all too common internet myth. Read their SEC-10K filing.
Apple counts a sale:
when an item is sold AND delivered to an end user from one of their own stores (online or brick) (*), or
when payment from a retailer is assured and title transferred, which is usually the moment they ship the unit.
Interestingly, Samsung's SEC filing says they don't count the second kind of sale until an item is _delivered_ to a retailer.
Both companies apparently account for returns separately (i.e. they don't get subtracted from the sales).
(*) Apple's "delivered" requirement in this case, is why presale numbers are different from sale numbers. For example, when Apple announces the number of presales of a new device, analysts pay attention. That's because the units ordered from Apple itself are not counted as sales until they actually reach the customer. So later when Apple announces official "sales", plus we know that many presale shipments are delayed, then the analysts can estimate how many more units have NOT been counted as sales YET, even if paid for.
If we take these numbers for fact (I won't get involved in that debate), Apple has nothing to worry about at this point. Apple's increase in sales of 7.8 M units is larger than the increase in anyone else's sales, including the Other category. Percentages of sales should only be compared for Apple's growth percentage vs. total market growth percentage. While Apple's gain is lower than overall market growth, that is to be expected as multiple new players enter and flood the market. There will be an equilibrium eventually and so long as Apple continues spec bumps and design revisions, I don't imagine they will fare poorly unless another player can somehow disrupt the market (and history shows other players haven't).
Originally Posted by ankleskater
Find all the silverlinings you want. Be as selective with available data as you like. But the tablet industry is morphing away from a single gorilla market.
Well, when combined use of Android tablets gets over 10%, you let us know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Originally Posted by ankleskater
Find all the silverlinings you want. Be as selective with available data as you like. But the tablet industry is morphing away from a single gorilla market.
Well, when combined use of Android tablets gets over 10%, you let us know.
Are you reading a different report than the one on this page?
Samsung is already at 15.1% market share according to the article. People don't just buy an Android tablet and then toss it, still in the box, into the nearest trash bin on the way out of the store. I think they probably take them home and use them.
Originally Posted by mstone
Samsung is already at 15.1% market share according to the article. People don't just buy an Android tablet and then toss it, still in the box, into the nearest trash bin on the way out of the store. I think they probably take them home and use them.
Why doesn't use share reflect that?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Originally Posted by mstone
Samsung is already at 15.1% market share according to the article. People don't just buy an Android tablet and then toss it, still in the box, into the nearest trash bin on the way out of the store. I think they probably take them home and use them.
Why doesn't use share reflect that?
By "use" I take it to mean you are referring to web browser statistics?
That has been debated in many threads but is not addressed in this article. Personally I think the disparity is more about price and that typical Android users of lower income brackets do not have WiFi access in the same abundance as the more affluent iPad owners.
It seems you are trying to argue that Apple has more than 43.6% market share stated in this report and that the data here is entirely bogus.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Why doesn't use share reflect that?
Could a portion of that be that often Android users use alternate user agents in their browsers, thereby appearing as computer users instead of tablet users?