The quarterly sales results have finally trickled in, and despite some of the analysts’ findings, it’s starting to sound like there’s a severe disconnect between what the analysts are estimating, and what the major carriers are actually selling to customers.
MG Sieger over at TechCrunch and Eric Savitz over at Forbes have both begun piecing together some of the results, and the conclusions they were left to draw suggests that Apple is actually dominating the US smartphone market.
51 percent of all smartphones sold on the nation’s largest carrier (Verizon). 78 percent of all smartphone sold on the nation’s number two carrier (AT&T). And 60 percent of all smartphones sold on the nation’s number three carrier (Sprint). Jay Yarow of Business Insider did the math: all together, the iPhone accounted for 63 percent of the smartphone sales in the past quarter on the big three carrier.
Siegler and Savitz aren’t the only ones scratching their heads at the market numbers that trickle in quarter after quarter that indicate Android is dominating the market. Numbers aside, I often find myself wondering where all these supposed Android phones live while I’m out on the town. In a completely unscientific way, I find it hard to believe that Android numbers are as large as many suggest. I just don’t see an equal representation while I’m at the mall, or out at a restaurant. Maybe the domination is in Europe, or better yet Toronto. Maybe I just recognize iPhones at a higher rate.
I recommend giving Siegler’s article a read. He certainly raises some excellent points, and a couple cautionary examples of how relying on these analyst projections and surveys for information may not exactly always tell the whole story.
The numbers just don’t add up. Either Apple’s outselling Android in the US, or it’s not. The only question left at this point is whose numbers do we trust? Third party analysts conducting surveys with relatively small sample sizes or the major carriers quarterly earnings calls? Putting the numbers aside for a second, what’s your gut tell you? It’s telling me Apple’s doing a lot better than analysts credit them for in these surveys.
