Are Apple's sales stats dodgy?

Anthony Caruana
Tuesday, 08 June 2010 20:14

IT Industry - Market

During his WWDC 2010 keynote address, Apple CEO Steve Jobs boasted that the iPhone was currently number two behind RIM in smartphone sales. He quoted a Nielsen survey but there was a noticeable absentee in Apple’s stats - Symbian. So what’s the truth?

We’re the first to admit that Mark Twain had it right when he said that there were three types of lies; lies, damned lies and statistics. Now, the discerning reader will not base their understanding on just one set of numbers. Whenever a statistic is quoted it needs to be checked. After all we need to counter that other maxim; 62% of statistics are made up on the spot (OK, we made that one up!).

Jobs said in his address that some studies are “questionable”. According to Jobs’ keynote , the smartphone market in the United States looks like this.

RIM holds 19%
iPhone holds 28%
Windows Mobile holds 19%
Android holds 9%
Other holds 9%

These numbers come from a Nielsen survey for the first quarter of 2010. The problem is that Apple doesn’t operate in the American market - it participates in a global one. But more importantly, The most prominent smartphone operating system, Symbian, simply isn’t mentioned. Surely, it can’t be bundled into the “Other” category?

A look at some different statistics, this time from respected market analysts Gartner, reveals a different picture.