back to article Apple sucking triple the phone switchers as Samsung – report

The latest market data shows that Apple is winning over Samsung users from Android at three times the rate that the Korean firm is wooing iPhone owners into the open source fold. The data, based on four quarterly reports between June 2012 and July 2013 from analyst house Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, showed that 33 …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    to quote the late, great

    Bill Hicks "Is there really that much babysitting money being passed around?"

    Don't cry fanbois, it's only a joke.

    1. Bob Vistakin
      Holmes

      MacRumours: Android grows to 80% of market, iOS drops to 13%

      That's what it says here.

      Is this "report" just a very clever but desperate attempt to disguise this fact?

      1. N13L5
        Pint

        slightly retarded flamebait article penned by Gollum after loosing his ring?

        I wonder how the math of this goes...

        you pull 3 times as many customers off another brand, yet you loose market share, while the other brand makes a massive gains...?

        Reality distortion field still in force, apparently - proving that the distortion didn't emanate from Jobs, but that Jobs emanated from the distortion field :D

        1. Alister
          Headmaster

          Re: slightly retarded flamebait article penned by Gollum after loosing his ring?

          It's losing, not loosing

          1. hplasm
            Happy

            Re: slightly retarded flamebait article penned by Gollum after loosing his ring?

            It's a loose ring...

      2. lurker

        Re: MacRumours: Android grows to 80% of market, iOS drops to 13%

        "Is this "report" just a very clever but desperate attempt to disguise this fact?"

        That's exactly what it is. Cherry pick some fruit-friendly figures and pretend that everything is going swimmingly.

  2. K

    iPhone buyers also younger, smarter, richer than 'droid drones

    Let me correct that for you

    "iPhone buyers also younger, stupider, fooled easier than 'droid drones"

    Much better!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: iPhone buyers also younger, smarter, richer than 'droid drones

      Hey, if it helps you feel more secure about yourself, then ok...

    2. Steven Roper
      Joke

      Re: iPhone buyers also younger, smarter, richer than 'droid drones

      Ooh, ooh, can I write Apple's next marketing campaign based on this?

      "Samsung and Android. The choice of bogans, chavs and rednecks everywhere!"

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lies, damned lies, and statistics

    33 per cent of people who changed phones to Apple were previously Android users, while just 11 per cent switched from iOS to Samsung.

    So 3 people changed phones to Apple, of whom 1 was previously an Android user, while of the 10 people who switched to Samsung, only 1 was previously an Apple user.

    Thanks. Got it.

    1. ratfox

      Re: Lies, damned lies, and statistics

      This. Percentages are useless if we don't have total numbers. All statistics are good if you present them the right way.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Lies, damned lies, and statistics

        It gets worse - switchers to Apple were "Android" users, whereas the comparison given in the other direction is specifically Apple to Samsung. Apples vs. Oranges.

    2. Mark .

      And more "smart" people use Samsung

      Indeed, the same problem also applies to the one about education. The article reports:

      Degree: Samsung 50%, Apple 60%

      No degree: Samsung 50%, Apple 40%

      Except in absolute numbers, there are more people with a degree buying Samsung. The flaw is that the percentages are done by company, when they should be done by education status. At 2x Samsung sales (and that's just their Android phones), it works out to:

      Degree: Samsung 62.5% Apple 37.5%

      No degree: Samsung 71.4% Apple 28.6%

      So actually among educated people, Samsung is still massively preferred - it's just that these misleading stats penalise Samsung because they do even better selling to non-educated people.

      Terrible reporting. And why should we waste time trying to report these convoluted stats anyway? We can just look at the hard facts of sales data, and see that Android continues to dominate, and Samsung has further extended their massive lead over Apple.

      Another problem is only looking at Samsung and Apple. Let's consider if in a year, 50% of customers move from A to B, 50% from B to C, and 50% from C to A, the market is stable - but if we look at just A and B, it looks like B is much better than A!

      1. El_Fev

        Re: And more "smart" people use Samsung

        Hold on a second your going from samsung to the whole of android versus Appl in a couple of sentences?

        Anyway its just phones dude, chill ;)

      2. SuccessCase

        Re: And more "smart" people use Samsung

        @mutatedwombat

        No, there were 4 surveys with over 500 people surveyed by each. Of course there can be bad survey methodology, but there is nothing to indicate there is anything wrong with the methodology. Anything over 100 people will give statistically significant results.

        @Mark

        No, just because there has been a survey you disagree with, it isn't then OK to re-interpret (and misinterpret) the data based on a secondary source. You're just making it up. Look at the last chart from the report on this page:

        http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/08/19/apple-samsung-survey-cirp/

        The reality is Apple iPhone buyers are on average, higher educated, more engaged with their smartphones, have higher disposable income, are prepared to spend more money through their smartphones. Funny to watch the Fandroid's pirouette 180 degrees now the evidence contradicts the Samsung advertisement claims about only old people buying Apple devices. Suddenly it's only stupid young teenagers buying Apple. Except it isn't, it's affluent highly educated people from a range of ages.

        It is becoming clear as can be, the reason a higher proportion of older people are buying Samsung is because a large proportion of Android devices are being bought by older people who don't give a hoot about Smartphones but are buying them because the prices have now reached price points previously occupied by feature phones. This is why engagement/usage figures for Android are so dire (though they have been improving over the past year).

        People look at the total market figure and see this steadily increasing "mass of water," of which Apple seems to be an ever smaller percentage, without understanding there are some very strong currents/dynamics within the water and that the Apple user base continues to expand at a rate of knots. They don't understand Android has seen faster expansion through in-filling of the market as smartphones reached feature phone price points but that that trend and the relative sales of the two companies will change as the market matures. Surveys left right and centre are showing users prefer iPhone. Even in Korea more Samsung owners want to switch to iPhone than iPhone owners want to switch to Samsung! ( though, to be fair, the preference gap has been narrowing). The logical result of these dynamics is that as various markets mature we will see more of what is now occurring in the US occurring elsewhere. Android in decline.

        http://www.asymco.com/2013/08/08/android-net-user-decline/

        Look at the trajectories of the third graph on the page. It says everything about the dynamic I'm referring to.

        1. d3rrial
          FAIL

          Re: And more "smart" people use Samsung

          And yet the survey tries to convey, that android is synonymous with Samsung, but ONLY if its convenient for them.

          "The data, based on four quarterly reports between June 2012 and July 2013 from analyst house Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, showed that 33 per cent of people who changed phones to Apple were previously Android users, while just 11 per cent switched from iOS to Samsung."

          Android -> Apple 33%

          Apple -> >>>SAMSUNG<<< 11%

          Of course that number is a lot lower, because Samsung may be >the< major player in Android, but there are still A LOT of other Android users that DO NOT own a Samsung Device, but for example HTC, Motorola, LG and whatever else there is, which are still ANDROID, just not Samsung. Yet the survey compares a company with a product when its convenient for them, and when the same comparison would be inconvenient, they compare their company with another company.

          1. t.est

            Re: And more "smart" people use Samsung

            Nope not the survey, that is el reg who implies that.

        2. Mark .

          Re: And more "smart" people use Samsung

          "No, just because there has been a survey you disagree with, it isn't then OK to re-interpret (and misinterpret) the data based on a secondary source. You're just making it up."

          Which source did I misinterpret, and what did I make up?

          It is true that if we look just at the US market, Samsung don't have 2x share as Apple - but then, a US-only survey isn't representative at all of the worldwide market in the first place.

          "The reality is Apple iPhone buyers are on average, higher educated, more engaged with their smartphones, have higher disposable income, are prepared to spend more money through their smartphones"

          I and others have already pointed out how the "on average" statements like these are flawed on numerous counts. And I don't really care if other people are more willing to spend money - it's zero factor in terms of what phone I want to buy; it's also of no relevance as to deciding which platform is best.

          "the reason a higher proportion of older people are buying Samsung is because a large proportion of Android devices are being bought by older people who don't give a hoot about Smartphones but are buying them because the prices have now reached price points previously occupied by feature phones."

          Firstly Samsung sell well even on their high end priced models alone (as does Android as a whole). Secondly, Apple's sales are made up of lower priced models - the older models that are still on sale.

          The fact that "feature" phones are now marketed as "smart" phones is a reason why the market for "smart" phones has increased, but that applies to Apple just as much as anyone else. Once an original iphone cost a ridiculous amount (even though it wasn't even a feature phone, due to lack of apps), now and iphone 4 or especially 3GS can be bought much more cheaply.

          I don't even know what "give a hoot about Smartphones" means, how you could measure it, why it matters, nor any evidence that it applies less to Apple?

          "Surveys left right and centre are showing users prefer iPhone."

          It shows that iphone users prefer them. The fact that some people are more fanatical or less critical doesn't make a product better.

          "The logical result of these dynamics is that as various markets mature we will see more of what is now occurring in the US occurring elsewhere. Android in decline."

          Wake me up when it happens. We've had 6 years now of predictions of iphone domination, and it's failed. Failed against Symbian, failed against Android. We're still waiting.

  4. T. F. M. Reader

    Insufficient data?

    "33 per cent of people who changed phones to Apple were previously Android users, while just 11 per cent switched from iOS to Samsung."

    This, as written, is consistent with a 100 people switching from other platforms to Apple (33 of them from Samsung) and 10000 people switching from other platforms to Samsung (1100 of them from iOS).

    Did you - or the report - miss some piece of information here? Between the above and "three times the rate", I mean?

    1. Eddy Ito

      Re: Insufficient data?

      Actually it isn't 33 from Samsung, it's 33 from any Android phone be it made by Samsung, HTC, Huawei, etc. Presumably the other 67 would be coming from feature phones, BB, Windows and the like.

    2. SuccessCase

      Re: Insufficient data?

      @T.F.M. Reader

      You're right to pick that up. But The Register simply copied it wrong. The source for this was originally from a Fortune magazine article and actually says:

      "Among buyers who switched brands, Apple took three times as many from Samsung (33%) as Samsung took from Apple (11%)"

      http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/08/19/apple-samsung-survey-cirp/

      1. t.est

        Re: Insufficient data?

        Here is an article that claims Samsung takes 7% from Apple.

        http://www.macrumors.com/2013/08/19/20-of-apple-iphone-customers-switched-from-android-7-of-samsung-buyers-switched-from-ios/

      2. FredBloggsY
        Facepalm

        Re: Insufficient data?

        'Re: Insufficient data?

        @T.F.M. Reader

        ... The source for this was originally from a Fortune magazine article and actually says:

        "Among buyers who switched brands, Apple took three times as many from Samsung (33%) as Samsung took from Apple (11%)"

        http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/08/19/apple-samsung-survey-cirp/'

        Yes, and the journalist who wrote that article made the same basic mistakes (unknowingly or deliberately) by comparing percentages when they need to compare actual numbers and /then/ recalculate percentages, if desired.

        Journalism and numeracy often do not dwell in the same person.

        Innumerate readers then fall into the same trap, believing that because they've seen percentages and graphs of percentages they have actually understood the underlying numbers. (Which they haven't, because (i) they weren't provided and (ii) the reader doesn't understand what percentages mean very well).

  5. stuartnz

    I read this a few times and couldn't find any information about the size of the sample, or its geographical parameters. Is this a global study, or a US-only one? If the latter, then its newsworthiness ranks only slightly below "study finds the Earth is an oblate spheroid".

    1. Darryl
      1. stuartnz

        Thanks! I understand the economic significance of the US market, but given the status Apple has as a religion there, survey results like this are totally predictable, hence my query.

        1. Arctic fox
          Thumb Up

          @stuartnz Funnily enough I was just about to ask the same question, ie are we talking....

          .......US or Global? The US is of course home turf for Apple and Samsung only began to make serious headway in the American smartphone market with the GS2. Apple had already seriously established themselves at the start of the smartphone era "over there", most particularly with the release of the iPhone 3 and 3S and they have always quite deliberately as a company focused purely on well-heeled high end customers . It would be equally valid to compare their respective sales globally whilst ignoring the US. Both approaches are ridiculous and reveal the inability of some American analysts to recognise that there is a whole world out there beyond the US borders. That however should not surprise us from a country where only about 5% of its citizens have a current passport.

          1. Danny 14
            WTF?

            Re: @stuartnz Funnily enough I was just about to ask the same question, ie are we talking....

            And where entire states believe in creationism....

            1. t.est

              Re: @stuartnz Funnily enough I was just about to ask the same question, ie are we talking....

              So interesting to study those of the other opinion, who actually have to believe a lot more.

              Just for your information, I do not believe in creationism nor in the evolution theory.

              Evolutionists believe storing information can be achieved mindlessly by randomizing everything. While the other claims 144 h to create everything. Something not even the source they cite claim, and easily proven wrong by either science or the book they claim to follow.

              1. FredBloggsY
                Facepalm

                Re: @stuartnz Funnily enough I was just about to ask the same question, ie are we talking....

                "Evolutionists believe storing information can be achieved mindlessly by randomizing everything."

                What, exactly, are you trying to convey in this sentence?

    2. t.est

      I would guess 98.98999% ov all surveys made on this earth are made in the U.S.S.A.

  6. 20legend

    just goes to show...

    that a higher level of education and a well paid job don't stop these fools from being easily parted from their money......

    1. Tom 13

      Re: just goes to show...

      Toss in a dose of low self-esteem for which they need to compensate and you've got a highly toxic witch's brew.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    S4 sales are disappointing, one phone company has dropped it.

    The entry level S4 is still 16GB only, why not 32GB? oh and making it out of cheap plastic, it's not 2009 anymore Samsung. Even HTC are producing solidly made attractive phones now.

    1. Mark .

      Because it's entry level (and the microSD slot still allows a maximum storage of 80GB even on the base 16GB model, higher than any iphone). If you want 32GB built in, go and buy that version.

      I don't know how cheap Samsung get the materials for. But so - it's proven that Apple have the highest profit margins, which by definition means the component cost is lower compared to the sale price. Yet oddly, Apple fans spin that as a positive for Apple too! Which is it - do you want more expensive components, or the company taking higher profit margins?

      S4 sales are massive - the only negative aspect is that some "experts" claimed they'd be even higher.

      1. Ben 54

        One more point, Samsung actually manufacture some of their own components, so their cost is obviously lower in that regard. And for all those apple tarts out there, I suggest you read up who actually manufacture the Apple processor on their devices. That kind of will insult all the "younger and more educated" statement, since they obviously don't even know what they are buying. Who will you rather buy from, the guy on the corner store selling milk, or the farmer producing it?

        1. El_Fev

          "apple tarts" , really ? Time to ban these types of articles I think.

        2. SuccessCase

          @Ben 54

          You mean Samsung are the fab plant for Apple processors, which are custom design ARM chips, designed by Apple, which is one of the largest employers of chip designers int he world. You are referring to the Apple chips Samsung aren't allowed to use in their phones if they wanted to; For which Samsung have no knowledge of the Logic design and for which the contract for fabrication will forbid them from reverse engineering and which Apple can take to another fabricator if they wish.

          You mean Samsung, who are using off-the-shelf ARM chip designs, and who realising Apple are pulling ahead in chip design (because chip design for mobile devices is all about the blend of many factors which apple are tailoring specifically to their OS so they get speed/power advantages when and where needed), are only now beginning to up their game, copy the Apple playbook, and talk produce their own custom build chips for future generations of phones.

          Oh those two companies the Apple tarts are ignorant about.

          1. FredBloggsY
            Meh

            "Apple processors, which are custom design ARM chips"

            Chips: ARM designs and licenses. Apple pays to use and tweaks (as allowed by licence).

            OS X / iOS: others design, create and license (Unix variant) for free use. Apple uses and tweaks (as allowed by licence).

            Apple deserve the kudos for their tweaks, but are somewhat disingenuous in allowing the ignorati (*) amongst their followers to believe that they created it all.

            Apple's contribution is more like the spray job on a custom car. It might be very good, except no one believes the person doing it also did the engineering. Apple, of course, do have some significant input to the engineering, too, but others had already done much / most of the work.

            (*) Original poster excepted, of course.

        3. Tom 13

          @Ben 54

          I almost skipped your comment, but had to go looking to find the "apple tarts" post. So you got an up vote.

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Mark .

          How much do Samsung pay you? Is it per word or per submission?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "But so - it's proven that Apple have the highest profit margins, which by definition means the component cost is lower compared to the sale price."

        I read that twice, to make sure I understood what a massive FAIL it is. It is the stupidest thing I have read today and I briefly glanced at the Daily Mail earlier!

        Mark the Moron MtM(tm) at it again

    2. FredBloggsY
      Paris Hilton

      "oh and making it out of cheap plastic"

      There are many types of plastic.  Not all are cheap.  Many are superior to more  traditional materials in all sort of situations.

      E.g.  Consider the iPhone.

      "A recent survey" found that 25% of iPhones have cracked / broken screens.  (Can't be bothered to look up the reference, but it's broadly in line with my own observations).

      That does not seem to indicate a good design decision in choice of materials - "form over function", as they say.

      "Fortunately", the manufacturer has successfully cultivated a particular type of Pavlovian audience, from which it profits by trading on similar insecurities and fantasies to those exploited by other fashion industries.

      E.g.

      Manufacturer: "Aluminium, glass."

      Audience: drool.

      Manufacturer: "Shiny, 'i'."

      Audience: drool.

      Manufacturer: "Special, magic, huge mark-up (*)"

      Audience: drool, donate.

      (*) "mark-up" is usually expressed by using images of wealth, exclusivity, being "special", which simultaneously trigger the Pavlovian response and suppress critical faculties.

      Paris, looking insecure and shedding a tear as she wonders whether she's exploited by fashion industries.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thanks...

    For the boost in AAPL's stock price. It needed that.

    It is nice to have a bunch of that. Unfortunately according to "experts" I have too much, and its basis (what determines the taxes when I sell) is way to low to get rid of it. So, I just keep going.

    Maybe it will go to $700+ again (wishful thinking!).

  9. Cliff

    Nice, if flawed, article for the fapples.

    As above, the combination of the limited home market gene pool for this, unlike comparisons, the absolute lack of absolute figures etc., then it's nice of the reg to print this Apple funded press release to keep the fapples happy :) Fandroids just have to read between the lines to get a superior 'meh' in :)

  10. uhuznaa

    It's probably just that

    some people have better things to do with their time than to waste it on customizing their fucking phone.

    Vote me down now, please.

    1. csumpi
      Stop

      Re: It's probably just that

      > some people have better things to do with their time than to waste it on customizing their fucking phone

      Like what? organizing their fucking iTunes library?

      1. t.est

        Re: It's probably just that

        Who organizes thery itunes library.

        iTunes does that for you, that's why itunes users have itunes. Never bother about organizing.

        So clueless about iTunes. It's on constantly on my computer, but I almost never touch it, just let it do it's "magic".

    2. FredBloggsY
      Meh

      Re: It's probably just that

      "some people have better things to do with their time than to waste it on customizing their fucking phone."

      Presumably, such people don't waste time on customizing their fucking phone?

      Some 'phones are more customisable than others.

      Some people like to customise more than others.

      Not sure what point you're trying to make.

  11. William 3 Bronze badge

    Strange.

    One moment the article is talking about people switching over to iOS from android.

    And then it's talking about people switching from iOS to Samsung.

    Subtle, but obviously Apple PR shit.

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