85% of mobile device failures occur on Android, with Samsung leading the way

Posted:
in iPhone edited February 2016
The overwhelming majority of mobile device failures come from handsets running the Android operating system, new data reveals, showing that Samsung devices are responsible for the most overall issues.


Image via Tested & Trusted.


Among Android units, Samsung devices suffered the highest failure rate at 27 percent, according to data published by Blancco Technology Group on Tuesday. Lenovo was close behind at 21 percent, and followed by Motorola at 18 percent, Xiaomi at 11 percent, and lastly Asus at 8 percent.

Overall, Android mobile devices represented 85 percent of failures tracked by the report, while Apple's iOS hardware accounted for the remaining 15 percent.

The BTG data is based on the diagnostics testing of "millions" of iOS and Android devices in Asia, Europe, and North America, using the company's SmartChk platform. Notably the company did not collect data for phones or tablets running other operating systems, such as Windows.




Globally, the greatest problems were reported to be with cameras, which accounted for 10 percent of device failures. Touchscreens failed in 9 percent of cases, battery charging was an issue in 8 percent, microphones caused problems in 6 percent of issues, and general performance was pegged at 6 percent.

In North America performance was by far the biggest issue, reportedly accounting for 17 percent of device issues. Cameras, batteries, headsets, and microphones proved to be comparatively distant concerns.

In Europe, the largest issue for smartphone users was carrier signal, while Asia mirrored the U.S. with performance problems.

The study also found that the majority of devices returned in North America (74 percent) and Europe (71 percent) actually had no diagnosed trouble, something potentially costly to cellphone makers and carriers.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 43
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    "Notably the company did not collect data for phones or tablets running other operating system, such as Windows". 

    While we should look at all OSes, if Windows had 100% failure rate, it still won't be significantly different than zero. :)
    cornchipAnichiabrakkennetmage
  • Reply 2 of 43
    wood1208wood1208 Posts: 2,905member
    My iphone 4 lasted 5 years(2010- Nov 2015) without failure with 2 times water dive. There is one reliable smartphone, THE iphone.
    cornchip
  • Reply 3 of 43
    mike1mike1 Posts: 3,275member
    "In North America performance was by far the biggest issue." What exactly is meant by 'performance"?
    brakken
  • Reply 4 of 43
    To be fair, the failure rate percentage should be compared to the percentage of market share. Samsung devices may have a higher failure rate than Lenovo because they are just more of them.

    "Samsung devices suffered the highest failure rate at 27 percent, Lenovo was close behind at 21 percent, and followed by Motorola at 18 percent."
    techloverAnislprescottbrakken
  • Reply 5 of 43
    As Android is 85% of the market and iOS is 15%, it would seem that both OS have the same failure rate.
    techlovercornchipAnibradipaotjwolfslprescottradarthekatbrakkentallest skilthepixeldoc
  • Reply 6 of 43
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    Blancco - oh that's the new Antutu.

    When I quoted Antutu benchmarks I was ridiculed and told they were complete rubbish.  When DED quoted them as the basis of one of his hit-pieces, people cheered and high-fived the awesome figures.  Now we have this Blancco garbage.

    "Blancco Technology Group has released its Q4 2015 State of Mobile Device Performance and Health. The report contained some interesting tidbits. For example, nearly 3 out of 4 phones returned to carriers and manufacturers in North America and Europe actually have no problems. According to the report, "user behavior" is the cause of many of the performance problems that lead to device returns. Some of the problems have to do with the failure to close open apps, especially in Asia where 40 or more apps could be open at the same time. The slowing performance is blamed on the hardware when it really is the user's own fault."

    Gee, since 85% of phones sold last year ran Android, I am completely shocked that 85% of problems reported on phones were on ones that ran Android.
    techloverAnisingularitybrakkenthepixeldoc
  • Reply 7 of 43
    calicali Posts: 3,494member
    Sammy leads in device failure?? Let's see the media frenzy regarding this.

    If 'Droid/Apple share is %20/%80 worlwide then these numbers are decent but I'd expect more from Apple products like less than %10 failure share. Ideally %5 or less for Apple and %95+ for the cheap knockoffs.
  • Reply 8 of 43
    qwweraqwwera Posts: 281member
    From my own personal experience, I can attest that Android has far more problems than iOS. With sealed batteries now, you have to learn how to shut down and restart your phone whenever crashes. It happens a lot.
    Aieeeeeee!applepieguy
  • Reply 9 of 43
    This study is brought to you by the Captain Obvious Corporation.
  • Reply 10 of 43
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    Wow.

    I hope no one paid them any money for that survey.

    This just in:

    The Automobile Association reports they receive more callouts from Toyota Yaris owners than from folk who drive  Bugatti Veyrons


    fastasleepbrakken
  • Reply 11 of 43
    It is definitively not clear how this data is calculated.  If it is total number of smartphone failures divided by total number of smartphones, and the failure numbers mimic market share, then one could say the failure rate is similar for iOS and Android.  

    What needs to be published is the probability of failure for ONE iOS device and the probably of failure for ONE Android device of a specific brand.  This is the type of reliability data other industries use to determine failure rates for safety systems (e.g. chemical industry, airline industry, nuclear industry).  If you have 1 million devices in service, and 100 fail per year, then you have a failure rate of 100/1,000,000= 0.0001 per year=0.01% per year.  Simply add up all the failures of iOS devices in a year, and divide by the installed base.  Do the same for Android, and you'll have a real number to compare the two by.  I'm sure someone has this data.
    Anisingularityiosenthusiast
  • Reply 12 of 43
    To be fair, the failure rate percentage should be compared to the percentage of market share. Samsung devices may have a higher failure rate than Lenovo because they are just more of them.

    "Samsung devices suffered the highest failure rate at 27 percent, Lenovo was close behind at 21 percent, and followed by Motorola at 18 percent."
    cnocbui said:
    Blancco - oh that's the new Antutu.

    When I quoted Antutu benchmarks I was ridiculed and told they were complete rubbish.  When DED quoted them as the basis of one of his hit-pieces, people cheered and high-fived the awesome figures.  Now we have this Blancco garbage.

    "Blancco Technology Group has released its Q4 2015 State of Mobile Device Performance and Health. The report contained some interesting tidbits. For example, nearly 3 out of 4 phones returned to carriers and manufacturers in North America and Europe actually have no problems. According to the report, "user behavior" is the cause of many of the performance problems that lead to device returns. Some of the problems have to do with the failure to close open apps, especially in Asia where 40 or more apps could be open at the same time. The slowing performance is blamed on the hardware when it really is the user's own fault."

    Gee, since 85% of phones sold last year ran Android, I am completely shocked that 85% of problems reported on phones were on ones that ran Android.

    Except Android isn't 85% of devices.

    Only the severely mathematically challenged would claim that. There is ZERO evidence to back this ridiculous claim. 
    cornchipsuddenly newtonapplepieguy
  • Reply 13 of 43
    levilevi Posts: 344member
    domino67 said:
    As Android is 85% of the market and iOS is 15%, it would seem that both OS have the same failure rate.
    I was thinking that to, though I suspect the researchers would've controlled for this. If so, it was not conveyed clearly in this story. 
  • Reply 14 of 43
    cornchipcornchip Posts: 1,945member
    cnocbui said:

    Some of the problems have to do with the failure to close open apps, especially in Asia where 40 or more apps could be open at the same time. 
    Which is weird to me since I stopped counting at 60 "open" apps with exactly zero apparent performance issues on my iPhone 5 running the latest OS.
  • Reply 15 of 43
    To be fair, the failure rate percentage should be compared to the percentage of market share. Samsung devices may have a higher failure rate than Lenovo because they are just more of them.

    "Samsung devices suffered the highest failure rate at 27 percent, Lenovo was close behind at 21 percent, and followed by Motorola at 18 percent."

    Except Android isn't 85% of devices.

    Only the severely mathematically challenged would claim that. There is ZERO evidence to back this ridiculous claim. 
    Where do you want your evidence, IDC?

    http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp

    Or Gartner?

    http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3169417

    Both IDC and Gartner are pretty close to the claimed 85% global Android market share.

    Both IDC and Gartner have their numbers used on this site and many others.
    edited February 2016 Anisingularitycnocbuidomino67
  • Reply 16 of 43
    techlover said:

    Except Android isn't 85% of devices.

    Only the severely mathematically challenged would claim that. There is ZERO evidence to back this ridiculous claim. 
    Where do you want to your evidence, IDC?

    http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp

    Or Gartner?

    http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3169417

    Both IDC and Gartner are pretty close to the claimed 85% global Android market share.

    Both IDC and Gartner have their numbers used on this site and many others.


    Hook. Line. Sinker.

    I KNEW someone was going to take fabricated sales figures/shipments from companies that don't report them to try and make a case.

    Apple currently has 1 billion active iOS users. If they were at 15% and Android was at 85% then Android would need to have 5.6 billion ACTIVE users.

    Now tell the truth, do you honestly believe there are 5.6 billion Android devices currently in use around the world? A simple yes or no will suffice.


  • Reply 17 of 43
    techlover said:
    Where do you want to your evidence, IDC?

    http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp

    Or Gartner?

    http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3169417

    Both IDC and Gartner are pretty close to the claimed 85% global Android market share.

    Both IDC and Gartner have their numbers used on this site and many others.


    Hook. Line. Sinker.

    I KNEW someone was going to take fabricated sales figures/shipments from companies that don't report them to try and make a case.

    Apple currently has 1 billion active iOS users. If they were at 15% and Android was at 85% then Android would need to have 5.6 billion ACTIVE users.

    Now tell the truth, do you honestly believe there are 5.6 billion Android devices currently in use around the world? A simple yes or no will suffice.


    We are talking about smartphones here.

    EDIT: Check that I was wrong, they are including tablets as well. But yeah, I would say that there have been 5 times the number of devices sold that run Android vs. iOS globally. So many Android tablets are incredibly cheap. Or free when you buy something else.
    edited February 2016 cornchip
  • Reply 18 of 43
    techlover said:


    Hook. Line. Sinker.

    I KNEW someone was going to take fabricated sales figures/shipments from companies that don't report them to try and make a case.

    Apple currently has 1 billion active iOS users. If they were at 15% and Android was at 85% then Android would need to have 5.6 billion ACTIVE users.

    Now tell the truth, do you honestly believe there are 5.6 billion Android devices currently in use around the world? A simple yes or no will suffice.


    We are talking about smartphones here.

    The article is about smartphones and tablets.

    But let's stick with smartphones. The iPhone is around 700 million active users. That would mean there are around 4 billion ACTIVE Android smartphones in use. Do you think there are that many? Again, a simple yes or no will suffice.
    patchythepirate
  • Reply 19 of 43
    techlover said:
    We are talking about smartphones here.

    The article is about smartphones and tablets.

    But let's stick with smartphones. The iPhone is around 700 million active users. That would mean there are around 4 billion ACTIVE Android smartphones in use. Do you think there are that many? Again, a simple yes or no will suffice.
    I would say yes.

    How many people do you think have more than one "ACTIVE" (as you like to put it in all caps) device?

    I personally have a few "ACTIVE" phones, and more "ACTIVE" tablets than I would care to admit.

    Hell I even have a tablet that I only use in the john when I am taking a dump. And that is most definitely an "ACTIVE" tablet.

    EDIT: I will "come clean" and admit that I use my toilet tablet to also play podcasts while I am taking a shower.
    edited February 2016
  • Reply 20 of 43
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member
    To be fair, the failure rate percentage should be compared to the percentage of market share. Samsung devices may have a higher failure rate than Lenovo because they are just more of them.

    "Samsung devices suffered the highest failure rate at 27 percent, Lenovo was close behind at 21 percent, and followed by Motorola at 18 percent."

    Except Android isn't 85% of devices.

    Only the severely mathematically challenged would claim that. There is ZERO evidence to back this ridiculous claim. 
    Your reading comprehension appears to be somewhat lacking:  SOLD LAST YEAR - there,  a subtle clue for you.  And here is some non zero evidence for you:



    And those iOS numbers include my daughters iPod Touch that is still running OS 6 as it can't be upgraded beyond that.  Then there's the odd iPad or two

    singularitytechlover
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