HTC Becomes Highest Shipping Smartphone Vendor In the US

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HTC Becomes Highest Shipping Smartphone Vendor In the US

Posted by Unknown on Monday October 31, 2011 @11:49AM from the king-of-the-hill dept.

An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from an article in BGR: "Samsung blew past Apple and Nokia in the third quarter to become the No. 1 smartphone vendor in the world, but another emerging smartphone vendor stole the top spot in the U.S. according to a new report. Market research firm Canalys on Monday released country-level smartphone shipment estimates and according to its figures, HTC shipped 5.7 million own-brand smartphones and another 700,000 T-Mobile-branded handsets last quarter to take the top spot with 6.4 million total devices shipped."

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Q3 is meaningless when comparing to Apple by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 11:55 · Score: 0, Troll

We all know they next iPhone is Q4 and everyone stops buying Apple phones well before a new product.
1. Re:Q3 is meaningless when comparing to Apple by peragrin · 2011-10-31 12:03 · Score: 1
  
  not only that but apple had opening week sales of 4 million units for the 4s.
  6.4 million is a drop in the bucket when apple is doing that every month.
  Of course Apple has an easier time with only 2-3 models to support it is easier to keep on top of.
  HTC and Samsung have hundreds of models that get some updates but not others, etc.
  
  --
  i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
2. Re:Q3 is meaningless when comparing to Apple by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 12:35 · Score: 0
  
  But how many of those iPhones sold are to replace existing iPhones versus new or switched from another manufacturer, and how many of Samsung's and HTC's are sold to replace existing Samsung and HTC phones respectively versus new or switched from another manufacturer? That and Q4 will see some new phones from Samsung (Galaxy Nexus, to name one) and HTC as well, which could build Samsung and HTC sales even more. Q4 is all speculation at this point.
3. Re:Q3 is meaningless when comparing to Apple by symbolset · 2011-10-31 14:12 · Score: 1
  
  So compare it to RIM. That should be meaningful.
  
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  Help stamp out iliturcy.
4. Re:Q3 is meaningless when comparing to Apple by Moryath · 2011-10-31 14:30 · Score: 1
  
  No kidding. Not just that, but it's fucking terrible managing to find out which temproot/permroot function works best for your phone, and then keeping it applied through the OTA update nonsense.
5. Re:Q3 is meaningless when comparing to Apple by teg · 2011-10-31 22:33 · Score: 1
  
  We all know they next iPhone is Q4 and everyone stops buying Apple phones well before a new product.
  In Q3 (their Q4 2011), Apple sold more than 17 million iPhones. 21% increase from Q3 last year when they had a new phone) - so "everyone stops buying" is a little exaggerated. Apple will no doubt have much higher Q4 sales (my own 4S is waiting for me at the post office today.... 15 more minutes to go), but that doesn't make these numbers meaningless. They are still a very interesting data point.
Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by jmcbain · 2011-10-31 12:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

I don't understand the relevance of these estimates of Samsung and HTC shipment figures, for three reasons:
1. The shipment estimates are made by analyst companies, not by Samsung or HTC themselves. Samsung, as of last summer, has stopped providing shipment numbers of its smartphones and tablets. Then these other companies (Strategy Analytics and Canalys) step in with their own estimates that are dodgy at best. How do they get their numbers? If Samsung is not providing their shipment numbers, why should we believe a third party?
2. One shipment to a vendor (e.g. Best Buy) does not map to one sale to an end consumer. A vendor can always return the item back to the seller.
3. What is counted as a smartphone? Phone manufacturers are cramming more smartphone features into low-end devices; remember that even the most basic Symbian phone was counted by Nokia as a smartphone, and look how those ostensibly great sales turned out for Nokia.
Note that Apple always lists its sales in its SEC statements. And these are sales figures to the end consumer, not shipments.
1. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Kenja · 2011-10-31 12:25 · Score: 0
  
  Article doesn't say highest selling, it says highest shipping. It may be a meaningless metric, but it is not deceptive.
  
  --
  
  "Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
2. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by mirix · 2011-10-31 12:27 · Score: 1
  
  Well to be fair, the most basic symbian phones were among the original smartphones. It's not Nokia's fault that other smartphones got smarter ;)
  
  --
  Sent from my PDP-11
3. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2011-10-31 12:32 · Score: 0
  
  HTC and Samsung don't know how many phones they sell until months after they ship, because that's how their distribution channel wworks. Apple DOES know how many they sell, because they sell directly to consumers.
4. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by 0xdeadbeef · 2011-10-31 12:38 · Score: 1
  
  remember that even the most basic Symbian phone was counted by Nokia as a smartphone
  Of course it was, since every Symbian-based phone sold by Nokia was a smartphone.
  And if you use the definition of "smartphone" that includes the iPhone at launch, you'd have to include the S40 phones you're confusing with S60 phones anyway.
5. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 12:40 · Score: 0
  
  Well, it's not a "fault", but Nokia was a major push in making smartphones smarter than their first Symbian devices, and denoted tiers above smartphone for them (rather than sliding the smartphone tier up) -- first the "Communicator" series, and then the N-series have been billed as "Multimedia Computers". One way we'll be calling something faster than a Cray-1 a dumbphone, the other way we'll see an escalation of terms to microhypercomputerphone -- not sure I like either. :(
  And honestly, it is hard to deny that the most basic current S60 phone is as much a smartphone as the cheap 6-800MHz Android 1.x phones you can get for dirt-cheap from China. Both of them are quantitatively a long way from the N8 or [flagship Android phone], but both of them are qualitatively much more like that flagship than like an S40 (or other dumbphone OS) phone.
6. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by andydread · 2011-10-31 12:44 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  FTFA
  "After a slow start in 2010, AT&T has over-delivered on the number of Android devices it promised to launch in 2011, including the Impulse 4G, supplied by Huawei but AT&T-branded, sold at an aggressive $30 with a contract to target first-time smart phone buyers. Android holds nearly 70% of the platform share in the United States, compared with 57% worldwide."
  Then there is the massive Chinese market that's coming online.
  "The Chinese smart phone market is seeing explosive growth, not least from domestic vendors Huawei and ZTE,’ said Shanghai-based Canalys Research Director for China, Nicole Peng. ‘Both vendors are delivering good-quality, attractive smart phones on the Android platform for both the domestic and foreign markets, and their aggressive pricing strategies are enabling them to ship large volumes. They will continue to be an increasingly disruptive force in the global market in the coming quarters"
  Then there are the Andoid smart watches and who knows what else around the corner. That's the real news. Android looks like it's set to steamroll.
7. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Gothmolly · 2011-10-31 13:09 · Score: 1
  
  You sound fanboi.
  
  --
  I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
8. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by stephanruby · 2011-10-31 13:27 · Score: 1
  
  Note that Apple always lists its sales in its SEC statements. And these are sales figures to the end consumer, not shipments.
  Apple does projections too in its quarterly reports.
  For instance, this last October it projected it was going to sell 22 million iPhones, and it only sold 17 milllion. In any case, everybody publishes their sales figures to their investors. It's just that most of us don't care about last October Sales figures, we care about future sales (or at least current sales), and that kind of information is hard-to-come by if we need it to be reliable.
9. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by tuppe666 · 2011-10-31 13:51 · Score: 1
  
  No apple says sales but they are shipments...shipments are really a business to business sale. Not that you should CARE.
  Seriously I do wonder who posts on Slashdot. A shelf stacker knows not only is Shipments of an *Established* product a good "as is"metric, its probably a better "to be" metric. Its only a poor metric for gauging the "long term" success of a launch product, but then initial sales is not always a good indication either. Businesses unlike consumers have no brand loyalty, and will only buy products they can sell at a profit.
10. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 13:57 · Score: 0
  
  Apple does projections too in its quarterly reports.
  For instance, this last October it projected it was going to sell 22 million iPhones, and it only sold 17 milllion.
  So last quarter according to you Apple sold 17 million iPhones. According to the summery
  
  Market research firm Canalys on Monday released country-level smartphone shipment estimates and according to its figures, HTC shipped 5.7 million own-brand smartphones and another 700,000 T-Mobile-branded handsets last quarter to take the top spot with 6.4 million total devices shipped."
  Last I checked 17 > 6.4. How is HTC in the top spot?
11. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by symbolset · 2011-10-31 14:14 · Score: 1
  
  We have to use some numbers to see what's happening. If you don't like these numbers, what have you got that's better?
  
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  Help stamp out iliturcy.
12. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by symbolset · 2011-10-31 14:15 · Score: 1
  
  Always in motion is the future.
  
  --
  Help stamp out iliturcy.
13. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Karlt1 · 2011-10-31 14:23 · Score: 1
  
  For instance, this last October it project yed it was going to sell 22 million iPhones, and it only sold 17 milllion. In any case, everybody publishes their sales figures to their investors. It's just that most of us don't care about last October Sales figures, we care about future sales (or at least current sales), and that kind of information is hard-to-come by if we need it to be reliable.
  Apple didn't miss their estimates. It missed analysts estimates. For the past four years, iPhone volumes have always been down a quarter before a new phone.
14. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Dahamma · 2011-10-31 14:29 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly what I was going to say...
  And another reason this is a relatively meaningless metric: in many cases this is an apples to oranges [sorry, obvious pun ;) ] comparison. iPhone retail prices (and discounted prices) are much higher than the average HTC phone retail/discount prices, and so Apple's profit margin (and total profit) are in another league from its competitors...
15. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 14:33 · Score: 0
  
  There's three reasons why Samsung won't show their numbers.
  1. They are in a lawsuit global with Apple. shipments and sales numbers would make reparations should they lose their cases very NOT kosher. But they are selling gangbusters--enough so that they are beating the pants off apple.
  2. They aren't actually selling that many smartphones. The SG 2 may have sold well momentarily but the iphone 4s actually caused a huge dip in sales. Apple is winning hands down. There's a lot of androids in channel.
  3. They are winning but they don't want Anyone to know. Cuz they are crazy.
  It's most likely a combination of 1 and 2. Samsung android smartphones are selling very well but the lawsuits keep Samsung afraid of releasing numbers as shows the irreparable harm they've "done" to apple by "copying" allegedly the iOS platform. Samsung phones are pretty popular so i doubt they've got channel issues and their silence was early on and not because of the iPhone Pervasive Plan rollout.
  and i'm pretty sure Samsung is kicking HTC's ass...
16. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by tuppe666 · 2011-10-31 14:39 · Score: 1
  
  Exactly what I was going to say...
  And another reason this is a relatively meaningless metric: in many cases this is an apples to oranges [sorry, obvious pun ;) ] comparison. iPhone retail prices (and discounted prices) are much higher than the average HTC phone retail/discount prices, and so Apple's profit margin (and total profit) are in another league from its competitors...
  "(HTC) announced that its third quarter profit was NT$18.68bn, a 68 per cent increase from the same quarter in 2010"
  http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2121366/htc-causes-sensation-68-cent-rise-profits
  Apple but clearly competing companies are making massive profits from Android
17. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Relayman · 2011-10-31 14:46 · Score: 1
  
  Apple doesn't always sell directly to consumers. What about the ones sold through Verizon, AT&T and Sprint stores?
  
  --
  If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
18. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 14:50 · Score: 0
  
  Last I checked 17 > 6.4. How is HTC in the top spot?
  HTC's number is US only, Apple's number is worldwide.
19. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Dahamma · 2011-10-31 14:53 · Score: 1
  
  $18.6B NT is about $600M USD. Apple's total profit is about $7B over the same time, with about $5-6B from the iPhone.
  It's great to see Apple competitors (especially Android-based) making a healthy profit... but still... in another league...
20. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 14:55 · Score: 0
  
  Don't forget that iTunes probably tracks that serial#/hardware data since that is the first thing all apple device must do.
  You can't even turn the damn thing on without first seeing the USB cable and itunes icon with an arrow.
21. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by BasilBrush · 2011-10-31 15:00 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Then these other companies (Strategy Analytics and Canalys) step in with their own estimates that are dodgy at best.
  It's a mistake to group these two companies together. I too am suspicious of Strategy Analytics. I'm unaware of any history or reputation they have in this field. Canalys on the other hand has been putting out mobile phone market share studies every quarter for about 10 years. They are a reputable research company, and have charted the highs and lows of many manufacturers and mobile OSs. I've never known them of having unrealistic estimates by anyone in the industry.
  There's also Gartner that do them, and they are credible too, though I'd suggest Canalys is better.
  
  3. What is counted as a smartphone? Phone manufacturers are cramming more smartphone features into low-end devices; remember that even the most basic Symbian phone was counted by Nokia as a smartphone, and look how those ostensibly great sales turned out for Nokia.
  There's much confusion about what constitutes a smartphone. You rarely see it defined anywhere. But it's essentially this:
  1) A smartphone is a phone which can run third party apps, written with the same APIs as the built in apps. Such that third party apps can be indistinguishable from the built in apps. They are "first class citizens".
  2) A featurephone is a phone which can run "applets". WAP, J2ME and such like. They are add on apps, but they limited compared to the built in apps.
  3) A dumb phone is a phone which doesn't qualify for either of the above.
  The very first Symbian phone, the Ericsson R380, wasn't a smartphone. I don't recall if it qualified as a feature phone or just a dumb phone. But it wasn't a smartphone. Other than that, every Symbian phone was a smartphone. Just because it was 10 years ago and the apps were less flashy doesn't mean they weren't smartphones.
22. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by demonlapin · 2011-10-31 15:29 · Score: 1
  
  iPhones are activated by Apple. They know exactly how many are activated as soon as it happens. They even know how many owners the average iPhone has over its lifetime and how many iPhones the average owner has over time. HTC and Samsung have nothing like that.
23. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 16:27 · Score: 0
  
  iPhones are activated by Apple. They know exactly how many are activated as soon as it happens. They even know how many owners the average iPhone has over its lifetime and how many iPhones the average owner has over time. HTC and Samsung have nothing like that.
  Knowing all that is good because, oh yeah, big brother Apple MUST know it all. One good reason not to buy one, besides their over-the-top price (often sugared by you favorite Verizon, AT&T ... - buy it cheap pay us more). Go get a market share ...
24. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by PopeRatzo · 2011-10-31 16:29 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I don't understand the relevance of these estimates of Samsung and HTC shipment figures, for three reasons:
  Don't worry, nobody's going to take away your iPhone just because some other phone manufacturers are having some success.
  Believe it or not, the smartphone market is not middle-earth and it's not the forces of good against the forces of evil. If a day comes, and it may never come, when there is a phone that sells better than the iPhone, it will not reduce one bit the meaning of your long devotion. You will still receive your reward in the next life when you meet Steve Jobs at the pearly gates and blow him.
  
  --
  You are welcome on my lawn.
25. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Swampash · 2011-10-31 18:07 · Score: 1
  
  Apple does projections too in its quarterly reports.
  For instance, this last October it projected it was going to sell 22 million [businessinsider.com] iPhones, and it only sold 17 milllion.
  ANALYSTS predicted 22 million iPhone sales. Not Apple. Because Apple doesn't play that game.
  All Apple predicted was "revenue of about USD 25 billion" and it came in at just over USD 28 billion.
26. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by rtb61 · 2011-10-31 21:18 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  That's it, keep bragging about how Apple is screwing over it's customers it sure to win them more. Face it the iPhone is yesterday's phone and an Android phone is today's phone, tomorrow's phone now that another question. Personally I think the digital home manufacturer is going to win that, you know, throw in free phone/tablet combination with big screen TV and existing same brand appliances count fridge, washing machine, stove, microwave and new air-conditioning means you'll get next seasons phone/tablet combination also thrown in for free. Now add in branded solar panels, back up batteries and inverter and you get the idea.
  
  --
  Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
27. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Pieroxy · 2011-10-31 22:23 · Score: 1
  
  You can't even turn the damn thing on without first seeing the USB cable and itunes icon with an arrow.
  Not true anymore.
  
  --
  Write boring code, not shiny code!
28. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Upphew · 2011-10-31 23:00 · Score: 1
  
  iPhones are activated by Apple. They know exactly how many are activated as soon as it happens. They even know how many owners the average iPhone has over its lifetime and how many iPhones the average owner has over time. HTC and Samsung have nothing like that.
  How Apple knows who owns the SIM card inserted to the phone? Or is the iPhone so tangled with iTunes (and does that need an account? And does the account need some credit card information?) that they get the information from there?
29. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by teh+kurisu · 2011-10-31 23:23 · Score: 1
  
  Or is the iPhone so tangled with iTunes
  
  It used to be. 'Activation' used to be Apple's mechanism of setting the network lock. Basically, the phone was useless out of the box until plugged into iTunes, at which point it would communicate with Apple's servers, which would send down information on which network the phone should be locked to (or in my phone's case, unlocked).
  As of iOS 5, you no longer need iTunes. I don't know how activation works now, as I've not yet had to restore a phone with iOS 5 on it.
30. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by uglyduckling · 2011-11-01 00:33 · Score: 1
  
  It's the same, but the activation is done via wi-fi or the cellular data network. Apple knows the IMEIs it has sold to each network, and will only allow the iPhone to activate on the allowed network. In the UK, the good networks will allow centralised unlocking of iPhones for a small fee once a proportion of the contract has passed, then when you restore the iPhone it will say something like "congratulations your iPhone has been unlocked" because the Apple database was updated by the network.
31. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-01 02:17 · Score: 0
  
  Correction: A dumb phone is a cellular phone that doesn't have problems making a phone call :)
32. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by SenseiLeNoir · 2011-11-01 02:44 · Score: 1
  
  Just like the initial release of the iphone was NOT a smartphone either.
  
  --
  Have a nice day!
33. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by tlhIngan · 2011-11-01 03:36 · Score: 1
  
  "(HTC) announced that its third quarter profit was NT$18.68bn, a 68 per cent increase from the same quarter in 2010"
  http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2121366/htc-causes-sensation-68-cent-rise-profits
  Apple but clearly competing companies are making massive profits from Android
  Or... Apple took 2/3rds of the profits of the entire mobile sector (including featurephones and "dumbphones"). Samsung, HTC, and others may have shipped more phones, but they're making far less money per phone than Apple.
  Like how Apple can sell 1/10th the number of computers Dell does, but yet rake in far more revenue from computers alone than Dell does.
  And Android's huge in China. Shipments from HTC/ZTE/others won't show it, but it's because most Android phones run AOSP. AOSP is pretty big - anyone with design chops can plop in a cheap processor, some memory, and do the Android build for it. Doesn't matter if it's 1.5, 1.6, 2.1, 2.2 or 2.3 - whichever works well enough to ship. Sure they won't have Google apps, but there's alternative marketplaces, and many of them (besides serving up all the Android malware) offer "free" apps.
  Heck, the Chinese might be more familiar with AOSP and their marketplaces than official Android. Hell, the first complaint of Android malware came from "unofficial Chinese marketplaces" - that should give you an indication just how big Android is. HTC and others might actually have a harder time because they have to compete against AOSP phones with preloaded marketplaces and stuff.
34. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by tuppe666 · 2011-11-01 03:44 · Score: 1
  
  $18.6B NT is about $600M USD. Apple's total profit is about $7B over the same time, with about $5-6B from the iPhone.
  It's great to see Apple competitors (especially Android-based) making a healthy profit... but still... in another league...
  I would love to see where you get these figures from http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/10/despite-record-mac-sales-70-of-apples-revenue-comes-from-ios.ars I am to believe that Apple from 41% revenue makes makes 86% of its profit. I suspect you are exagerating just a tad :)
35. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by wumpus188 · 2011-11-01 03:46 · Score: 1
  
  Just curious, where is this 70% share coming from? I see different stats here.
36. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by BasilBrush · 2011-11-01 03:49 · Score: 1
  
  That's true. For the first year the iPhone didn't qualify as a smartphone. And Apple were careful not to call it one. For example they set a target of capturing 1% of the phone market, rather than say 5% of the smartphone market. IIRC they slipped up in just one press release, where they mentioned the smartphone market. But they never called iPhone a smartphone in that period.
  iPhone because a smartphone with the release of iPhoneOS 2.0. All those original iPhones could be upgraded. And that was a couple of months before Android came out.
37. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-01 03:59 · Score: 0
  
  Hey c'mon man. Analysts have a tough job to do, constantly having to make up studies and pull numbers out of their ass. These people went to business school and would not know how to make a proper study if they had too, not that they have to anyways.
  We all know that a really useful study would be the number of smartphones (with some kind of definition of what that is) sold by model per country. Since Apple is really only selling one model per year, this leaves them behind in numbers against all the Android makers that are probably selling a half dozen models each. This would be a difficult study to perform and we can't ask the analysts to work. Can we now?
38. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Daniel+Phillips · 2011-11-01 04:50 · Score: 1
  
  Google knows exactly how many Android phones have been activated. Something over 400,000/day last I heard.
  
  --
  Have you got your LWN subscription yet?
39. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-01 07:26 · Score: 0
  
  My $50 Huawei "dumbphone" has Google Maps. I downloaded Nimbuzz from GetJar for multiple messenger support. The only reason why they use J2ME / WAP (that's just a small webpage, so I'm not sure if I'd count that) is because they're wanting to achieve cross-device/cross-company compatibility -- a write-once-run-on-every-company type thing (same reason Android's based on Dalvik). By and large, these applications have the same functionality as built in applications. I also had an 8 year old "feature" phone from Sony Ericsson -- a v800i that did much the same.
  The only feature that they didn't have is multitasking non-integrated applications (i.e. you can only run one non-default installed application plus any number of the internal ones). This, I think, is where dumbphones and smartphones are differentiated.
  This means that the i series phones up until the 4th version were dumbphones.
  Even Palm OS5 (not the Pre) back in 2002 had multitasking / multithreading and could truly be considered a smartphone.
40. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by LordRobin · 2011-11-01 09:06 · Score: 1
  
  Believe it or not, the smartphone market is not middle-earth and it's not the forces of good against the forces of evil.
  Really? You coulda fooled me. Reading Slashdot, you get the idea that Steve Jobs died because someone cut the One Ring from his hand.
  I also LOL at anyone on Slashdot tut-tutting "Apple fanboys" for acting hysterical, when any article about smartphones is immediately filled with comments from chest-beating Android fans and mouth-frothing Apple haters.
  ------RM
41. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Dahamma · 2011-11-01 10:31 · Score: 1
  
  Yeah, brain fart. I meant to say $2.5-3B from the iPhone, $7B total. It was a bit under 5x HTC's profit and for some reason I multiplied by 10 :)
42. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Carewolf · 2011-11-01 10:34 · Score: 1
  
  In that case every $1 phone I have had the last 8 years have been smartphones. I still consider them feature-phones or dumb phones, because those 3rd-party applications were rare and not very convenient.
43. Re:Figures provided by analysts, not the companies by Boycott+BMG · 2011-11-01 10:46 · Score: 1
  
  It was 550,000/day in mid-July. http://www.dailytech.com/Google+Sets+Earnings+Record+Sees+550K+Android+Activations+Daily/article22164.htm
Re:no by Quartus486 · 2011-10-31 12:05 · Score: 1

You mean he's still alive, trying to get out of it?!?!
O_o
Shipped vs sold by frnic · 2011-10-31 12:06 · Score: 1

It's all in how you play with the numbers
1. Re:Shipped vs sold by Xest · 2011-10-31 21:25 · Score: 0
  
  Yes.
  If you're a fanboy.
2. Re:Shipped vs sold by carsamba · 2011-11-01 11:19 · Score: 1
  
  HTC mainly does Android, but does Windows Phone too (which IMHO is like iphone with an inferior app store but better UI). HTC keeps churning out devices at a prodigious rate. Even if some are shipped but not sold (and eventually returned), it is a very very respectable number. Their growth figures are astounding. So.. Even if the numbers are inflated by some percent, it is definite that its marketshare is going up. And that's in a wildly growing market.
HTC is hardly an emerging player. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 12:12 · Score: 1

They have been making phones for longer than most of the other guys mentioned
Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by Algae_94 · 2011-10-31 12:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm sure lots of people will bring up the fact that shipped phones does not have a 1-to-1 correlation to sold phones. They may not sell and be returned to the manufacturer. That being said, how many times could HTC or Samsung or any other company get away with over shipping devices that don't sell before retailers stop ordering as many devices? I seriously doubt HTC is shipping vast quantities of phones in these numbers that didn't sell. This isn't a failing product like the TouchPad prior to the fire-sale, or the Playbook. These are just commodity smart phones.

Whether you love or hate Apple, the important point to debate is not exactly who is king of the hill in smart phones, but the fact that it is not just one player that rules it all any more. Anything can change as time goes on and no major handset manufacturer can let up or they might fall hopelessly behind.
1. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by jrumney · 2011-10-31 12:28 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Apple can only give "units sold" figures for phones sold from the Apple store. That might work for the US market, but in many other countries they are doing the same as every other vendor and quoting figures for what they have shipped out to distributors, because those are the only figures they they can get.
2. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by blind+monkey+3 · 2011-10-31 12:34 · Score: 1
  
  ....but the fact that it is not just one player that rules it all any more. Anything can change as time goes on and no major handset manufacturer can let up or they might fall hopelessly behind.
  Hopefully that means we get better products and cheaper prices - Now THAT is what I consider to be win-win.
  
  --
  BM3
3. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by R3d+M3rcury · 2011-10-31 14:29 · Score: 1
  
  I wonder about this...
  I know that, way back when, Apple used an "agent" model for selling it's hardware via CompUSA. So Apple might ship x units to a store, but they retained ownership of the items. It was always a joke because Apple would have the new machines selling for the same price as the previous generation machines for the first few weeks until someone at Apple says, "Hey, what do you want to do with all this inventory sitting in a CompUSA store someplace?"
  So the computers in the stores belong to Apple, not CompUSA. In theory, Apple would have a better idea of their inventory because CompUSA reports sales of computers to Apple.
  I could easily imagine that Apple continues to do this with their non-Apple channels. So, in theory, Apple knows that the Best Buy in Peoria, IL, sold a MacBook Pro yesterday.
4. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by Relayman · 2011-10-31 14:34 · Score: 1
  
  [citation needed]
  
  --
  If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
5. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by sribe · 2011-10-31 14:39 · Score: 1
  
  I seriously doubt HTC is shipping vast quantities of phones in these numbers that didn't sell.
  Right, for a new product, especially one where the chances of success are questionable for some reason, there can be a huge disparity. For a successful product from an established vendor, they're eventually the same--the only disparity is then timing, in other words, don't confuse shipments spiking in anticipation of the upcoming holiday season with sales spiking in the off season...
6. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by sribe · 2011-10-31 14:40 · Score: 1
  
  Bullshit. Every single one of those phones is sold with a contract, and Apple most certainly knows how many phones the carriers are selling.
7. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by bloodhawk · 2011-10-31 14:57 · Score: 1
  
  Bullshit. Every single one of those phones is sold with a contract, and Apple most certainly knows how many phones the carriers are selling.
  Oh really? I am sure you will show me in the fine print where places like expansys provide these mythical contracts then? http://www.expansys.com.au/store/apple-iphone-4/
8. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by __aazsst3756 · 2011-10-31 15:30 · Score: 1
  
  Only in the US are most phones sold on contract. North America is only about 5% of the world population.
  Carriers certainly know what is on their networks, but the only people publishing numbers are analysts who have a very poor record of accuracy.
9. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by demonlapin · 2011-10-31 15:32 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  iPhones don't work until activated with an iTunes account. They can't say "units sold" for most outlets, but since an iPhone is useless without activation, it's a pretty safe bet that they know almost exactly how many phones have been sold.
10. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by jrumney · 2011-10-31 15:55 · Score: 1
  
  In some countries, tying a phone purchase to a contract is illegal. So no, not all of those devices sold are tied to a contract, even if you discount all the WiFi only iOS devices that are sold.
11. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 19:15 · Score: 0
  
  Seriously? You need an iTunes account to have a working iPhone? Ugh. Remind me not to buy any of Apple's overpriced products
12. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by demonlapin · 2011-10-31 22:28 · Score: 1
  
  Been living under a rock for the past few years?
13. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-01 00:47 · Score: 1
  
  This is false. iPhones (pre iOS5) work as soon as it's connected with a computer with iTunes installed. But it does _not_ require an iTunes account. (Although I bet nearly every iPhone user has one anyway, since an account is required for the App store).
14. Re:Cue the shipped vs. sold debate by TemporalBeing · 2011-11-01 05:14 · Score: 1
  
  'm sure lots of people will bring up the fact that shipped phones does not have a 1-to-1 correlation to sold phones. They may not sell and be returned to the manufacturer. That being said, how many times could HTC or Samsung or any other company get away with over shipping devices that don't sell before retailers stop ordering as many devices? I seriously doubt HTC is shipping vast quantities of phones in these numbers that didn't sell.
  Well, it doesn't reach 1:1 mostly because you'll get some that are defective in some manner no matter what you do. So the stores return those and replace them with another from their stock. You might even get someone picking up a phone at one store and having it swapped out at another store, though that will vary by what the carriers allow the associated stores to do. So, it's probably more like 100:99 than 1:1 in the end, but it all comes down to the QA each company has - both the phone provider and the stores themselves. And obviously they want to get as close to that 1:1 ratio as they can.
  
  --
  Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
Re:no by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 12:24 · Score: 0

Dude, seriously, too soon.
Give him at least another month to regain strength and try to get out of there.
Posted as AC to avoid stoning.
Re:no by PopeRatzo · 2011-10-31 12:25 · Score: 1

Steve Jobs is rolling in his grave
No, he's busy kicking Chuck Norris' ass.

--
You are welcome on my lawn.
HTC are not new..... by bleh-of-the-huns · 2011-10-31 12:27 · Score: 4, Informative

They have been making phones for years.. starting way back in the windows mobile days. Granted, they were mostly OEM for other brands, but they are not new.

--
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
1. Re:HTC are not new..... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 13:49 · Score: 1
  
  This. As a former UTStarcom PPC-6700 and HTC Branded PPC-6800 I can say I was down with HTC before it was the cool thing to do! Had the HTC Eris not been such a weakling compared to the OG Droid at launch I'd still undoubtedly be an HTC Phone owner. The HTC Thunderbolt may still sway me back. But with the Samsung Galaxy Nexus around the corner along with my contract expiration, and having bought a Samsung Vibrant on Craigslist to see how I liked the Samsung way I think I know what my next smartphone purchase is going to be.
and yet... by smash · 2011-10-31 12:40 · Score: 1

I've seen only 2 HTCs in the wild.

--
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
1. Re:and yet... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 12:46 · Score: 0
  
  I use an HTC.
  Also, I have a feeling that you hang out around a lot of iphones.
2. Re:and yet... by mjwx · 2011-10-31 13:10 · Score: 2
  
  I've seen only 2 HTCs in the wild.
  Looking around my office, 4 HTC's, 2 Samsungs, 1 Iphone (work phone that's treated like a red headed step child no-one wants).
  
  In the US, HTC phones aren't branded as HTC, they're branded as Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint et al. In Australia and Europe I see heaps of HTC Desire's, Desire HD's, Sensation's, Legend's and a few Desire Z's. All of these phones have different names in the US due to your woeful patent minefield.
  
  --
  Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
3. Re:and yet... by SBJ95 · 2011-10-31 13:21 · Score: 1
  
  I've seen only 2 HTCs in the wild.
  My carrier (U.S. Cellular) has several HTC phones, including the one I have (HTC Merge). So far, my experience with it has been great! Sturdy as a rhinoceros...
  But at least in the Midwest, HTC phones seem to me to be wildly popular.
4. Re:and yet... by Cryacin · 2011-10-31 13:38 · Score: 1
  
  For a second there, I read that as iPhonies. Must remember to use that.
  
  --
  Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
5. Re:and yet... by SmurfButcher+Bob · 2011-10-31 14:02 · Score: 2
  
  > I've seen only 2 HTCs in the wild.
  I suspect you live in an iCave, or under an iRock.
  
  --
  
  help me i've cloned myself and can't remember which one I am
6. Re:and yet... by Belial6 · 2011-10-31 14:28 · Score: 1
  
  Wow, I see 5 HTCs just in my own home, and there are only three of us. HTC's are everywhere.
7. Re:and yet... by b4dc0d3r · 2011-10-31 16:01 · Score: 1
  
  And yet, i own one.
  I spent 6 years looking for the perfect phone + plan. I have been looking for the perfect TV product (satellite or cable or whatever and haven't bought one in ...ever). I bought DSL out of necessity, because cable doesn't run here. And yet...
  I got Sprint unlimited everything, with an HTC device, because everyone else was clamping down. And the device was free with rebates, which I already got credited (next month was free, no bill last month).
  Make no mistake, I bought sprint unlimited everything because everyone else was clamping down, and if they *ever* change the conditions, I have enough income *in the bank* to fight them, and I will. For now, I am happy with my service.
  tl;dr
  Sprint happened to sell an HTC device when I was ready to buy. If they change their TOS, I will subtract myself from Sprint, HTC, and anyone else involved in the deal (BlueFish).
8. Re:and yet... by moronoxyd · 2011-10-31 20:11 · Score: 1
  
  Here: 1 person, 3 HTCs
9. Re:and yet... by smash · 2011-10-31 23:28 · Score: 1
  
  Mostly iDevices, yes. The rest are mostly samsungs.
  
  --
  I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
10. Re:and yet... by dunkelfalke · 2011-11-01 00:05 · Score: 1
  
  Hipster!
  
  --
  "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
11. Re:and yet... by geminidomino · 2011-11-01 02:49 · Score: 1
  
  I just replaced my old Samsung (m900 - Moment) with a refurbed HTC Evo 4G. I'm still feeling the pain of the lack of physical keyboard, which was the Moment's one redeeming quality, but the rest of that mess has pretty much made sure I'll never buy another Samsung again.
... and where is Motorola...? by Scowler · 2011-10-31 12:46 · Score: 1

This news, more than anything else, makes me question again the wisdom of Google purchasing Motorola (Mobility). Either Motorola performs well, and shows up in stories like this (thereby irritating Google's Android OEM partners), or Motorola underwhelms, making most of those billions of dollars as a patent investment only (waaay too much money for that, even in today's litigious environment).
1. Re:... and where is Motorola...? by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · 2011-10-31 13:10 · Score: 1
  
  Google is buying Motorola Mobile for its tax-loss carry forwards, not for its patent portfolio.
2. Re:... and where is Motorola...? by symbolset · 2011-10-31 14:18 · Score: 1
  
  Keep telling yourself that if it helps you sleep better.
  
  --
  Help stamp out iliturcy.
Marketing speak by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 12:48 · Score: 0

Shipping does not mean selling. It simply means sending the devices to retail outlets where they could remain unsold This is just like RIM boasting about shipping playbooks
Re:no by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 12:57 · Score: 0

so he can steal his liver?
Don't forget that usage counts too by Fished · 2011-10-31 12:58 · Score: 1

I'm in training the past week or so with some not so cery technical people. All if them but me have Android, but today they were all talking about how they never bought apps and never used the smart-phone features. From what I can tell, the "I" device app market us still far ahead if droid, no matter how many devices they sell. Also, you can call me a fan-boi all you like, but I actually had a droid for a while (2 separate droits actually) and hated the platform even more than I hated Apples censorship of religious speech by Exodus International. Seems to me that there are many more religious apple hatred rubbing Android than vice versa at this point.

--
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
1. Re:Don't forget that usage counts too by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 13:39 · Score: 0
  
  That's nice, but what does it have to do with the post?
2. Re:Don't forget that usage counts too by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 13:41 · Score: 0
  
  It's okay, we can tell you are a fanboy from your very bad auto-correction.
3. Re:Don't forget that usage counts too by Relayman · 2011-10-31 14:42 · Score: 0
  
  Ultimately, the problem with Android is that very few phones ship with a current version of Android. Even those that ship with a current version rarely keep up. Michael DeGusta created a great graphic showing this. My wife's HTC Droid Eris is virtually unusable even though it's still on a two-year contract. Hence my sig line.
  
  --
  If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
4. Re:Don't forget that usage counts too by bdenton42 · 2011-10-31 15:04 · Score: 2
  
  I'm curious why it would be unusable from a OS standpoint now if it were presumably usable some number of months ago when she purchased it. The feature set on the OS doesn't degrade over time.
  The graphic is interesting, but Apple has the advantage of pushing OS updates directly to the devices. Android has the disadvantage of every manufacturer customizing it per vendor specification and the OS updates are pushed through those vendors. If Apple had to get AT&T approval to push iOS to the devices on their network you would see a bunch of yellow and maybe even red bars on the Apple lines too.
5. Re:Don't forget that usage counts too by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 19:52 · Score: 0
  
  How do you stand iTunes, especially after using an open system like andoid? I'm scared to even plug my ipod into another computer for fear it will get wiped and bricked.
6. Re:Don't forget that usage counts too by znerk · 2011-11-01 00:27 · Score: 1
  
  As of 6 months ago, your assumption that Apple has more apps is false.
  Here is a link for you.
  
  --
  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
7. Re:Don't forget that usage counts too by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-01 00:58 · Score: 0
  
  The feature set on the OS doesn't degrade over time.
  It does on iOS, so you can see why the Apptards might be confused.
  With the release of iOS 5, Siri was REMOVED from previous versions of iOS, where it previously worked just fine as a downloadable app. (By a combination of remotely deleting it via the app store and just refusing connections from non-4S phones, since the entire thing runs on "the cloud.")
  And that's just the most recent example of an iOS update retroactively removing features from existing iPhones.
8. Re:Don't forget that usage counts too by scot4875 · 2011-11-01 05:27 · Score: 1
  
  My wife's HTC Droid Eris is virtually unusable even though it's still on a two-year contract.
  
  So when she bought it, it was unusable? I mean, that's your implication: it hasn't received updates to make it usable, so it has remained in an unusable state.
  Why would you buy an unusable device to begin with? Have you asked her this?
  --Jeremy
  
  --
  Jesus was a liberal
9. Re:Don't forget that usage counts too by Relayman · 2011-11-01 12:44 · Score: 1
  
  My wife's HTC Droid Eris received one update and that was it. It was up to date for two months. Although it was a decent Android device, it wasn't particularly a good phone. At the end, before her phone was even two years old, her apps stopped working, one by one. First it was Lexulous, then Twitter, then Facebook. Without apps, what good is it? If you call HTC, they'll just say, "Sorry about your luck; upgrade to a new phone!" So she got an iPhone 4S which should last at least three and maybe four years, unlike ANY Android phone.
  
  --
  If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
10. Re:Don't forget that usage counts too by Relayman · 2011-11-01 12:47 · Score: 1
  
  The solution, of course, is to root it. But I simply don't have time for that. I want Something That Just Works.
  
  --
  If I used a sig over again, would anyone notice?
Good old conspiracy theory. by mjwx · 2011-10-31 13:04 · Score: 3, Informative

And these are sales figures to the end consumer, but mostly shipments.

Fixed that for you.

Apple sells most of it's phones via telco's. Which means they ship through the same channels as HTC, Samsung and everyone else. In Australia Apple have to ship through Brightstor to sell on most Telco's as Telstra and Vodafone have exclusivity agreements with Brightstor (not sure about Optus but it would not surprise me). The situation is quite similar in Europe. So most of apple's "sales" figures are shipped figures like all other manufacturers.

Secondly, this conspiracy is a little far fetched that HTC phones are not actually selling. I've heard this channel stuffing conspiracy for over a year with the Samsung Galaxy S yet it keeps selling and we've heard nothing about millions of returns. At some point you fanboys will have to admit that Android is outselling Iphones.

--
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
1. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by UnknowingFool · 2011-10-31 13:31 · Score: 2
  
  Apple sells most of it's phones via telco's. Which means they ship through the same channels as HTC, Samsung and everyone else. In Australia Apple have to ship through Brightstor to sell on most Telco's as Telstra and Vodafone have exclusivity agreements with Brightstor (not sure about Optus but it would not surprise me). The situation is quite similar in Europe. So most of apple's "sales" figures are shipped figures like all other manufacturers.
  How are you sure of that? Unlike Samsung and HTC, I believe Apple has these things called retail stores as well as an online store. I know that whenever you want something Apple that is in short supply your chance of getting at an Apple store is much higher than another location. Second, even if it was "shipped" instead of "sold", when something is in short supply like most new Apple launches, shipped = sold. I don't know about you but I can't remember the last time people lined up for a Samsung Galaxy phone unless Samsung bribes them.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
2. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by Cryacin · 2011-10-31 13:35 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  At some point you fanboys will have to admit that Android is outselling Iphones.
  Never underestimate the power of denial.
  
  --
  Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
3. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by BlueScreenO'Life · 2011-10-31 13:54 · Score: 2
  
  I don't know about Samsung but when the HTC Desire HD came out, the stores DID run out of stock where I lived (Western Europe for what it's worth).
4. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 18:16 · Score: 0
  
  Are you seriously the only person who doesnt know that Apple creates sell-out situations on purpose? Its Apple marketing 101 for christs sake. You don't think they KNOW how many phones they would need on launch day to meet demand? I mean sure, its quite possible for a company to once in a while vastly underestimate sales, but EVERY SINGLE LAUNCH its this way. Fuck, wake up.
5. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by alostpacket · 2011-10-31 18:30 · Score: 1
  
  Are we measuring denial at retail or wholesale?
  
  --
  PocketPermissions Android Permission Guide
6. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 19:21 · Score: 0
  
  when something is in short supply like most new Apple launches, shipped = sold. I don't know about you but I can't remember the last time people lined up for a Samsung Galaxy phone [...]
  
  Yeah, it's amazing how you can get people to do stupid shit through the use of super-hyped marketing campaigns and intentional supply shortages.
7. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by R3d+M3rcury · 2011-10-31 19:22 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not sure that anybody denies that Android is outselling iPhone. The issue is whether that's a fair comparison. It's akin to saying that all Chevrolet vehicles outsell the Toyota Camry. They certainly do, but does that mean anything? If you want to do that comparison, you need to compare Android-based devices against iOS-based devices, including the iPad and the iPod touch.
  That said, what's sticking in their craw is that the fanbois have always said that comparison should not be between Apple and Android but between Apple and the individual device makers. But now you see Samsung and HTC selling more than Apple. Inconceivable! There must be some trick going on--yeah! They're talking about shipments, not sales. The numbers comes from analysts, not the companies themselves. It was a bad quarter for Apple because nobody was buying iPhones because they were waiting for the new model! Yeah, that's it. Whew!
8. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 20:17 · Score: 0
  
  Same here (Western Europe). I know several people that drove to a neighboring country to buy their HTC Desire HD because it was sold out where they lived. The phone was sold out before launch in all the shops in the city I live in.... you had to pre-order months in advance.... but since it wasn't an Apple iPhone release, it wasn't newsworthy.
9. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by YeeHaW_Jelte · 2011-10-31 21:48 · Score: 1
  
  "I don't know about you but I can't remember the last time people lined up for a Samsung Galaxy phone unless Samsung bribes them. [mobilemag.com]"
  Good for them. That's not bribing that clever marketing.
  Anyone, the reason people don't have to line up for Samsung stuff might be because they actually make sure they have enough of them in stock and enough production capacity to make more. And the reason they do that might be because they actually make the hardware themselves, as opposed to Apple, who are dependant on ... guess who ... Samsung to make some really important components for their iPhones. (most notably the screens). Same goes for HTC btw who AFAIK couldn't use the AMOLED that the Samsung Galaxy SII uses because production was not enough to supply them.
  
  --
  
  ---
  "The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
10. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by Pieroxy · 2011-10-31 22:30 · Score: 1
  
  At some point you fanboys will have to admit that Android is outselling Iphones.
  Does anyone question that? For me it was clear from day one that Android would outsell iPhones, and I am actually surprised it took that long. Which doesn't really say anything over the quality of each platform.
  But the sheer strategy of Apple, with its walled garden, closed platform, and "one phone to rule them all" strategy makes them by definition unable to grab a majority of the market. Now if they keep the quality of their product on par (and that's a big IF) they'll probably end up at 15-20% of the market. With most likely 60% of the profits, but that's another discussion.
  
  --
  Write boring code, not shiny code!
11. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by teg · 2011-10-31 22:40 · Score: 1
  
  Are you seriously the only person who doesnt know that Apple creates sell-out situations on purpose? Its Apple marketing 101 for christs sake. You don't think they KNOW how many phones they would need on launch day to meet demand? I mean sure, its quite possible for a company to once in a while vastly underestimate sales, but EVERY SINGLE LAUNCH its this way. Fuck, wake up.
  Knowing how many they would need and having them are two different things... they sold 4 million the first weekend, hardly an artificial scarcity. Apple has a much higher demand for their handsets than anybody else... the obvious reason being that instead of releasing many models each year, they just have one. The production chain can't magically make an unlimited set of phones in a short time, and spending half a year to make inventory rather than selling them as you make them makes no sense. In addition, everyone you turn away because they can't get your phone risks going to a competitor for two years.
  Thus, your claim of "creating sell out situations on purpose" makes no sense. Myth busted.
12. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by znerk · 2011-11-01 00:13 · Score: 1
  
  From the article you linked:
  
  the first ten people each day at the temporary Samsung store can buy the Galaxy S II for just two bucks. This is a $600+ smartphone
  Are you just mad that you weren't first in line? Or are you mad that you didn't know that they were practically giving the phone away to the first ten customers each day? Perhaps you're mad because you paid through the nose for an iPhone instead of getting an arguably better phone right next door?
  Also, your claim that Samsung doesn't have a store is kinda broken when you link to an article indicating that they have a store.
  
  --
  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
13. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-01 00:41 · Score: 0
  
  "If you want to do that comparison, you need to compare Android-based devices against iOS-based devices, including the iPad and the iPod touch."
  And I was thinking this article was about phones... Anybody got any figures about sales of Android TVs?
14. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by UnknowingFool · 2011-11-01 01:02 · Score: 1
  
  bribe: (2) anything given or serving to persuade or induce
  
  I guess then I used the word bribe exactly as the definition states.
  
  Are you just mad that you weren't first in line? Or are you mad that you didn't know that they were practically giving the phone away to the first ten customers each day? Perhaps you're mad because you paid through the nose for an iPhone instead of getting an arguably better phone right next door?
  Hmm. So in a discussion about whether shipped = sold for Apple, the OP stated that most iPhones sold at telcos ignoring that Apple has a huge retail advantage in that they have their own stores. And your response is to levy insults. That adds a lot to this discussion.
  
  Also, your claim that Samsung doesn't have a store is kinda broken when you link to an article indicating that they have a store
  You should read that article again. This time look for the words "temporary" and "pop-up".
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
15. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by UnknowingFool · 2011-11-01 01:03 · Score: 1
  
  In that case HTC can rightly say the number shipped = number sold for that model. It was the same way when the Wii first came out and they couldn't make enough.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
16. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by UnknowingFool · 2011-11-01 01:06 · Score: 1
  
  Intentional shortage = selling 4M phones. I see. Maybe you just can't accept the truth.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
17. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by maccam · 2011-11-01 02:31 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Since iPhones, whether sold in an Apple Store or via a Telco, are activated via iTunes, I would suspect that Apple has pretty accurate units-sold numbers.
  
  --
  Half Word - Will Double, Wire Palindrome, San Francisco
18. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by teg · 2011-11-01 02:54 · Score: 1
  
  Anyone, the reason people don't have to line up for Samsung stuff might be because they actually make sure they have enough of them in stock and enough production capacity to make more.
  Hardly. The reason is that Samsung doesn't have anywhere the the demand spike Apple does. Apple has one phone a year, which results in massive media attention and a big demand spike at launch. Samsung continually releases new models in different markets throughout the year, and thus gets less media attention and no similar demand spike.
19. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by scot4875 · 2011-11-01 05:08 · Score: 1
  
  To be fair, Apple only has about 45% of the gross denial in the smartphone market vs Android's 52%. However, they control nearly 80% of the net denial.
  --Jeremy
  
  --
  Jesus was a liberal
20. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-01 05:41 · Score: 0
  
  I hear that works great for pancreatic cancer too.
21. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by znerk · 2011-11-01 09:07 · Score: 1
  
  You should read that article again. This time look for the words "temporary" and "pop-up".
  You should read that article again. This time, look for the word "store", since you stated:
  
  Unlike Samsung and HTC, I believe Apple has these things called retail stores as well as an online store.
  Note: no mention was made of "temporary vs. permanent".
  As for your opposition to Samsung's "bribe" of offering steep discounts to the first 10 people to purchase a phone:
  I'm assuming you never use coupons, and you always pay full price even if the item you are purchasing is on sale? Either your moral indignation over discounts, special offers, and incentives dictates that you never take advantage of them... or you're a hypocrite.
  Now pay attention, this part's important:
  I don't care about shipped vs sold; I was merely pointing out that you stated one thing, and then cited an article that directly contradicted that statement. Unbunch your panties, and pretend that facts and logic are part of this (or any) debate. Maybe you should choose your data sources more carefully next time you decide to fling poo on the internets.
  
  --
  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
22. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-01 10:31 · Score: 0
  
  Ehm, Apple does create sell-out situation. You can not bust documented truth.
23. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by UnknowingFool · 2011-11-01 10:36 · Score: 1
  
  You should read that article again. This time, look for the word "store", since you stated:
  May be this is way over your head but in the larger scheme of retail it is hard to sell things out of your retail store for any measurable amount of data when your store only lasts for a short time.
  
  As for your opposition to Samsung's "bribe" of offering steep discounts to the first 10 people to purchase a phone
  In the context of the discussion, does Samsung have people lining up to buy their products? I don't think those people would have lined up and waited if there wasn't the deal offered. They may have bought a Samsung regardless but the deal was too good not to pass up the offer.
  
  I'm assuming you never use coupons, and you always pay full price even if the item you are purchasing is on sale? Either your moral indignation over discounts, special offers, and incentives dictates that you never take advantage of them... or you're a hypocrite.
  Wow more insults instead of actual discussions. Out of the two of us, you seem rather offended that I didn't fly all the way to Australia and take Samsung on their offer because I couldn't clip enough coupons that would cover the airfare cost or my contract termination fees. May be my coupon clipping skills are not leet enough. It's funny that you already know my situation so well.
  
  Now pay attention, this part's important: I don't care about shipped vs sold; I was merely pointing out that you stated one thing, and then cited an article that directly contradicted that statement. Unbunch your panties, and pretend that facts and logic are part of this (or any) debate. Maybe you should choose your data sources more carefully next time you decide to fling poo on the internets.
  Again insults instead of actual discussion. The whole discussion was about shipped vs sold. But you immediately interjected by launching a personal attack yet you complain about my behavior and "flinging poo". If you read the thread above, which one of us is behaving badly. Would you like to tell me how fat my mother is? Because that is how you (and not me) have debased brought the discussion.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
24. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by znerk · 2011-11-01 11:24 · Score: 1
  
  I feel like I'm feeding a troll, here, but I'm going to try one more time to explain my position.
  You stated that Samsung did not have a store, then provided a link that showed that they did, in fact, have a store.
  You then attacked me for pointing this out.
  You went on to complain about the "bribe" inherent in a steeply discounted price. I countered that your stated viewpoint indicated that you would never use coupons or accept sale prices on anything, if "bribery" insults you so much. Your response that I was suggesting you fly to Australia is... well, a bit odd, to say the least.
  In your most recent post, you state that the store did not last long enough to have relevant sales data... but if it was irrelevant, then why are you so bent out of shape over it? If it's not irrelevant, then why did you claim that it is?
  In response to your accusations of "levying insults", I would like to point out that your initial post is where the accusatory tone and condescending manner of this thread began.
  You appear to have some issues in relation to reality. You appear to switch ideologies to suit your whim. You appear, in short, to be mentally unbalanced, and incapable of rational and/or critical thinking.
  I cannot continue this discussion.
  
  --
  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
25. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by UnknowingFool · 2011-11-02 01:54 · Score: 1
  
  Your first post:
  
  Are you just mad that you weren't first in line? Or are you mad that you didn't know that they were practically giving the phone away to the first ten customers each day? Perhaps you're mad because you paid through the nose for an iPhone instead of getting an arguably better phone right next door?
  Was there any point in there other than a personal attack?
  
  You stated that Samsung did not have a store, then provided a link that showed that they did, in fact, have a store.
  Perhaps instead of getting upended, you might have looked at the bigger discussion of what metrics are used and how they are derived. If you read the details of the article instead of going off, you might have noticed that it was a temporary store which doesn't really change the metrics in that it doesn't add much to the shipped vs sold debate for Samsung.
  
  You went on to complain about the "bribe" inherent in a steeply discounted price. I countered that your stated viewpoint indicated that you would never use coupons or accept sale prices on anything, if "bribery" insults you so much. Your response that I was suggesting you fly to Australia is... well, a bit odd, to say the least.
  Are you offended that I used the word that I felt best described the situation? Then you responded how some people clip coupons. Maybe it's not clear but people clip coupons to buy things to lower costs. Following your original post, there is no way that getting a Samsung at that store would have in any way been cost-effective for me. But you assumed so many things: (1) I wanted a smart phone. (2) I am in a position financially to buy a new smartphone. (3) It is cost-effective for me to get one from that store in Australia.
  
  In response to your accusations of "levying insults", I would like to point out that your initial post [slashdot.org] is where the accusatory tone and condescending manner of this thread began.
  I may be snide and condescending but show me where personally I attacked you. Anywhere in that post.
  
  You appear to have some issues in relation to reality. You appear to switch ideologies to suit your whim. You appear, in short, to be mentally unbalanced, and incapable of rational and/or critical thinking.
  Again, your position seems to be that you insult people rather than discussing things calmly. Your problem is that you can't follow my train of thought. Maybe I didn't detail it fully but it would have been a more fruitful discussion if the tone of your posts had been more "That's not right or I disagree." Instead "you're a hypocrite . . mentally unbalanced . . . "
  
  I cannot continue this discussion.
  Of course not. I didn't expect you would.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
26. Re:Good old conspiracy theory. by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-04 12:37 · Score: 0
  
  Since iPhones, whether sold in an Apple Store or via a Telco, are activated via iTunes, I would suspect that Apple has pretty accurate units-sold numbers.
  oh and therefore by your insinuation ... android doesn't have a comparable mechanic. brother, please.
What's the upgrade cycle on a smartphone? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 14:31 · Score: 0

Let's assume for a minute that shipped is close to sold. How many of these people are new to smartphones? How many bought a phone from the same vendor? How are replacements counted in the numbers? Say phone x breaks a lot.. do they count the replacement phones as another sale even though it goes to an existing customer?
When I see these numbers, I have to wonder what they mean. Does a certain demographic upgrade more frequently? (iphone users or android users or ... ) I keep my phone for the contract period, but I know others that have to have the latest iPhone. In the case on andriod this would be more important to get the latest OS version. (that's important to me at least)
I guess I personally don't care who moves the most units, but I am interested in who's the most popular with users.
Re:no by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 14:55 · Score: 0

Dude, seriously, too soon.
Really?
Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow, sorry.
How about a more accurate sample? by Powercntrl · 2011-10-31 15:51 · Score: 1

Go to a theme park and see what kind of phones people are playing with while they're waiting in line for an attraction. Better yet, I'll tell you what I've noticed: A lot less iPhones. Boo hoo for Apple, I guess.

--

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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Re:no by znerk · 2011-10-31 16:39 · Score: 1

Braaaaaiiinnnss...

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
new to most US consumers, so what's HTC like? by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 17:06 · Score: 0

So what's HTC's track record for product quality and the way they handle support?
Forget features of individual phones (unless they're really unique), is this a company I can trust to provide Android updates for a reasonable period after product introduction?
(As an aside, I was in Taiwan recently and noticed many HTC stores in the big city malls and such. I also saw one Nokia store. This stood out for an American because we tend to get our phones from the carriers' stores, and non-phone electronics from big-box stores, Apple being the standout in also having their own stores.)
1. Re:new to most US consumers, so what's HTC like? by Overzeetop · 2011-11-01 00:35 · Score: 1
  
  You don't have to. That's what XDAdevelopers is for - they started (iirc) on HTC phones and made them do wondrous things for the time.
  
  --
  Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Bah copycats by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 17:32 · Score: 0

Band-wagon-hopping copycats, cloning the one true Apple design. Apple should sue them.
Here's how they work:
1. Make clutzy, user unfriendly, tiny-screen, micro-button phones/pcs/mp3 players with unusable 7-level nested menus
2. Wait for someone else to have a better idea, and invent a new paradigm. Hope to god they use existing technology so it's easy to just copy, and that free software from someone else can also be copied.
3. Jump straight on the bandwagon and copy it. Let the lawyers worry about pesky copyright
4. Brag about how many more pixels/CPUs/Hz/MB your clone has, and the openness of its free OS (open to hackers, that is)
5. $$Profit$$
Why don't these people have their own Big New Ideas.
It's great to see Microsoft... by nimid · 2011-10-31 17:39 · Score: 1

...do so well!

--
A hundred and twenty characters ought to be enough for anyone...
Already happening... by LoadWB · 2011-10-31 17:48 · Score: 1

> So, how soon will we start seeing other smartphone vendors bid for secure-communications-devices contracts?"
Was at the N.S.A. Trusted Computing Conference last month in Orlando. Saw at least one vendor with smart phones for secure use. I'm not going to dig out the paperwork to find names right now, but one company is offering secure and rugged phones. A lot of other interesting stuff there, as well -- multi-domain systems in the same box with full RF shielding between compartments, "cloud" printing for printing across domains, and a mess of other stuff.
and this... by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-31 22:00 · Score: 0

is why "what I see around me" is not a good statistical sample of the market.
Shipping != Selling != Not Returned by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-01 00:11 · Score: 0

The whole statistic stinks of Miniscribe shipping fraud
just for comparison: giffgaff android stats (UK) by Jerry+Atrick · 2011-11-01 01:08 · Score: 1

For reference here's the top 10 install breakdown for my giffgaff Android app, showing Samsung and HTC neck&neck with HTC just a little ahead. giffgaff is a SIM only MVNO, they don't sell phones so these numbers have a large component of customer choice, though box breaking has a big influence.

1 ZTE Blade 19.7% (1,460)
2 HTC Wildfire 9.9% (735)
3 Samsung Galaxy S2 8.0% (595)
4 HTC Desire 6.6% (486)
5 Samsung Galaxy S 4.4% (327)
6 Samsung Galaxy 3 4.3% (320)
7 HTC Desire HD 3.8% (281)
8 Samsung Europa 3.0% (225)
9 HTC Wildfire S 2.1% (157)
10 Samsung Galaxy Ace 2.0% (151)

Really only useful as a HTC vs Samsung comparison because:
: some Android devices don't need the app so all Sony Ericsson, some LG and most phones running 3rd party firmware are under represented
: the ZTE Blade is absurdly cheap here (£69-100 unlocked), box broken from Orange
: the stats are cumulative over more than a year but do represent current active installs
Interesting trends are LG completely vanishing from that list several months ago and Samsung have almost caught up with HTC, HTC used to dominate the list. Bear in mind though that Samsung has been heavily discounted here in the UK for the last year, HTC much less so.

Even in the screwed up, carrier controlled US market I find it very easy to believe HTC selling as well as claimed.
Terrible News by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-01 01:39 · Score: 0

THis is terrible news. As a user of HTC droid phones over several generations, I can attest to the HTC custom software being _terrible_. If it wasn't for the fact that I am counter to Apple culture and not ready to try a WP7 yet -- I'd be off the platform. HTC having the highest marketshare now just means we will have a lot of people changing to iPhones and WP7 once their contracts end. I know I will be eyeing Nokia's new offerings...
The major difference by Quila · 2011-11-01 02:14 · Score: 1

Apple has millions of iPhones available in select markets on launch date (for example, 4 million iPhone 4S sales first weekend), and rolls out later to other markets to soften the first-day hit. And still there are lines around the block. Samsung has to practically give away phones to get a short line in front of one store.

And the reason they do that might be because they actually make the hardware themselves, as opposed to Apple, who are dependant on ... guess who ... Samsung to make some really important components for their iPhones. (most notably the screens).

LG makes most of the iPhone screens, plus some other smaller players. Samsung mainly provides the SoC, and is one of the NAND and RAM suppliers. Samsung doesn't make all the parts in a Galaxy either.
Re:no by skapaft · 2011-11-01 03:52 · Score: 1

Everyone knows Steve Jobs invented the liver, he's just trying to prevent Chuck Norris from copying his organ designs.
The submission is deceptive by unassimilatible · 2011-11-01 06:16 · Score: 1

"Samsung blew past Apple and Nokia in the third quarter to become the No. 1 smartphone vendor in the world, but another emerging smartphone vendor stole the top spot in the U.S. according to a new report"

As GP says, Apple's numbers are real sales. The submission summary suggests that Samsung and Nokia have beaten Apple. For a company so lambasted here as closed, it's sales numbers sure are a lot more open and transparent than this "devices shipped" canard we are hearing about Samsung and HTC.

See also, The bullshit Samsung smartphone numbers

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Ha, wait until Q1 results by unassimilatible · 2011-11-01 06:21 · Score: 1

"Face it the iPhone is yesterday's phone and an Android phone is today's phone, tomorrow's phone now that another question."

Apple will have it's biggest quarter ever in Q1, all those people who waited for the new iPhone all summer put off their purchase and bought a 4S. Apple still can't make enough of them. The iPhone has a much better customer loyalty rate than Android phones.

Let's see Google actually make a profit on Android - and survive all the lawsuits - before we crown it king.

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Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
What super-hyped marketing campaigns? by unassimilatible · 2011-11-01 06:26 · Score: 1

Apple doesn't discuss their products in advance, and the ads usually come out a week or so after the product release.

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Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
100 models against 1, and it's still close by unassimilatible · 2011-11-01 06:28 · Score: 1

Way more Android models, and they give the things away. And yet, Apple looks to be passing Android.

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Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
1. Re:100 models against 1, and it's still close by flabordec · 2011-11-01 12:19 · Score: 1
  
  Only if you ignore the trend and just focus on the last month. If you actually observe the trend the story is very different: iOS had a huge 10% advantage a year ago which has all but vanished.
  
  --
  "I see undead people" Warcraft III - Necromancer
Android #1? Then explain web share. by LordRobin · 2011-11-01 08:58 · Score: 1

Face it the iPhone is yesterday's phone and an Android phone is today's phone
And yet, according to NetApplications, iOS has a web share of over 60%, with Android a distant second place (31% US, 19% world). In other words, close to 2 out of every 3 mobile accesses of the internet are done via iOS.
Android supporters love to crow about how Android sales numbers are "beating" Apple, but the plain fact is that those sales numbers are padded with 2-for-1 and free deals that get Android phones in the hands of people who don't really need them. People who actually use their smartphones are buying iPhones.
------RM