There’s a bias in the media. Although Samsung has had some measurable time at the top of global marketshare, tech analysts and media (pro-Apple, mind you) called for Samsung’s fall with Apple’s large iPhone 6 Plus last Fall. If you’re a tech enthusiast, you’ve heard the same claim that Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus would put a major dent into Samsung’s smartphone sales. And when Apple’s sales increased after the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus announcement, some predicted the end of what had been a huge bragging right for Samsung – global marketshare.
And the bias continues despite Samsung’s success with its newest smartphones. We now have the latest figures regarding Samsung’s Q1 2015 sales. The company shipped 83 million smartphones (shipped doesn’t mean sold, we’re constantly told), and, while this is 6 million smartphones fewer than sales figures from Q1 2014, it's enough to put Samsung back on top in global marketshare. Additionally, the Korean manufacturer saw a 39% reduction in its net income from a year ago, a 30% reduction in operating profit, and a 57% drop in the company’s mobile unit operating profit from Q4 2014. And so, we’re given the same message, time and time again, that Samsung’s numbers leave a lot to be desired. If it’s not “Samsung isn’t selling smartphones, the Galaxy S5 was pathetic” (which is also false), we’re being told that the company doesn’t have its sales together and is losing its “edge.”
What can Samsung do to escape this bias? Unfortunately, nothing. The media may not want to hear this message, but let me take some time to explain this to you, our Samsung faithful.
Samsung’s chances for mass sales are like the chances a child has to get more than 2 slices of pizza when he has to share the pizza with 4 other people.
First, Samsung is an Android manufacturer and Apple is the face of iOS. Samsung has to compete with other companies in the Android space, such as LG, HTC, Sony, Huawei, Lenovo, Motorola, Xiaomi, ZTE, and others. Samsung’s chances for mass sales are like the chances a child has to get more than 2 slices of pizza when he has to share the pizza with 4 other people. You can take the slice of pizza, expand it, and then consider that with each percentage of sales, companies are slicing and dicing up the whole pizza (all Android sales) among themselves.
The eight Android manufacturers above are not the only ones, but they are the major ones – and they all must compete in the same enclosed Android space. In other words, Samsung could never achieve 101% of Android sales (and, with so many manufacturers in the space, it is impossible to get 95% of all sales). This past Q1 2015, Samsung shipped 83.2 million smartphones out of a total of 345 million smartphones (thus, having 24.1% of all shipped smartphones in Q1). Lenovo-Motorola had 5.4% of shipped smartphones (18.8 million), Huawei had 5% (17.3 million), and the “others” (throw in LG, HTC, Sony, Xiaomi, etc.) had 47.7% of all shipped smartphones in the quarter (164.5 million).
When you look at the stats, Samsung is carrying nearly half the global marketshare of all the other Android vendors combined (keep in mind that we’ve mentioned seven other Android manufacturers in this article, and there are other lesser-known brands). Samsung is shouldering its own in the Android space (with little competition, I may add, unless you factor in the “others,” who don’t even get a specific name mention), and the stats favor Samsung.
It’s interesting that the same tech analysts and media (some Apple and even Android tech sites) that tend to down Samsung aren’t applauding the “others” in the list. After all, the “others” category shipped more smartphones than Motorola, Samsung, and Apple last quarter. Why aren’t tech analysts and media applauding the “others” over Apple, for example?
There is no “slicing up the pizza,” so to speak, no divvying up the profits with anyone else but Apple.
In contrast, Apple has no competing manufacturers with iOS. No one else but Apple makes iPhones and iPads (and now iOS smartwatches), and no other devices in the mobile space run iOS but Apple devices. And, as a result, Apple doesn’t have to share its success with anyone. There is no “slicing up the pizza,” so to speak, no divvying up the profits with anyone else but Apple. And yet, if you take a look at the company’s smartphone sales and marketshare, Apple has lost quite a bit of the steam it picked up at the end of 2014. And yet, Apple gets applauded for its sales (even though the company is still down as compared to its sales a year ago in Q1 2014), while Samsung’s recovery gets sidelined in the media space because of its losses in profit. A double standard is at play here.
Me thinks tech analysts and media doth criticize way too much, to recycle a line from Shakespeare's Hamlet.
In the end, comparing Samsung and Apple's profits are, literally, like comparing oranges to apples: the success of both companies has a context, a situation, that requires consideration. Anyone who studies sales and global marketshare throughout the year knows that the secret to success is not necessarily how you start, but how you end. 83.2 million smartphones shipped in Q1 is a stellar achievement for any tech company. Any. Tech. Company. And Motorola, LG, HTC, Sony, Huawei, Xiaomi, and other Android manufacturers could only dream of having Samsung’s success.
So, what’s the problem with tech analysts and pro-Apple media? They’re just scared ‘cause Samsung’s made a comeback. Don’t worry, though; if you hang around in the tech world long enough, you’ll see that criticizing Samsung is what the critics do around the office when they run out of productive itinerary. Unfortunately for the tech analysts and media, Samsung’s got the right numbers to put it back at the top.
Despite the numbers they want you to see, there’s only one set that matters.
