Samsung Galaxy S III Estimated to Top iPhone 4S in 3Q 2012 Worldwide Shipments

BaldiMac said:

Shipped is shipped from manufacturing to retailers (including Apple retail stores) or consumers. Sold is sold to consumers. No need to complicate it.

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One complication in general when doing comparisons is that many companies do use the word "shipped" interchangeably with "sold".

If you mean Apple's definition, "sold" includes items paid for by a retailer and in the process of being shipped to them. See their SEC filing below. The moment an item is shipped to a retailer, it's counted as revenue. They do not count shipping to their own stores, though.

"(Apple) recognizes revenue when persuasive evidence of an arrangement exists, delivery has occurred, the sales price is fixed or determinable, and collection is probable. Product is considered delivered to the customer once it has been shipped and title and risk of loss have been transferred. For most of (Apple)’s product sales, these criteria are met at the time the product is shipped."

- Apple 10-K

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Btw, "customer" means both consumers (end users) and retailers. We have to be careful not to confuse the c words.

kdarling said:

One complication in general when doing comparisons is that many companies do use the word "shipped" interchangeably with "sold".

If you mean Apple's definition, "sold" includes items paid for by a retailer and in the process of being shipped to them. See their SEC filing. They do not include their own stores.

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I'm just discussing these numbers from Strategy Analytics in a straightforward way. No complications needed.

BaldiMac said:

I'm just discussing these numbers from Strategy Analytics in a straightforward way. No complications needed.

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Ooops, sorry! Busy at work and didn't have time to read the thread. Mea culpa!

BaldiMac said:

I'm just discussing these numbers from Strategy Analytics in a straightforward way. No complications needed.

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Good grief, your arguments are anything but straightforward.

You introduced "inventory channels" to argue the shipment numbers are not comparable. Then you argued that the 4S edged out the GS3.

The straightforward way is to find the conclusion in the thread title and simply say the GS3 topped the iphone last quarter, as per the thread title.

pacalis said:

Good grief, your arguments are anything but straightforward.

You introduced "inventory channels" to argue the shipment numbers are not comparable. Then you argued that the 4S edged out the GS3.

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Because channel inventory is the difference between shipped and sold! That's the point.

For a given quarter:
Sold = Shipped - (Change in Channel Inventory)

The iPhone 4S likely decreased it's channel inventory. The S3 likely increased it's channel inventory.

Which part isn't straightforward?

The straightforward way is to find the conclusion in the thread title and simply say the GS3 topped the iphone last quarter, as per the thread title.

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According to SA, the S3 outshipped the iPhone 4S in Q3. Not arguing that at all.

What we were discussing was whether the S3 was also the best selling smartphone last quarter. I think the claim is unsupported by SA's data. My guess is that the iPhone 4S had a slight edge based on their channel inventory priorities.

swagi said:

So you never complained about that or tried to get a swap unit? I've personally yet to receive a "random black screen" (I figured I really touched the DisplayLock button by accident and basic Display Timeout is set to 15 seconds with FaceDetection on, but if you're in ba light conditions the front camera doesn't recognize your face).

A crashing message app - never had or heard of that. Maybe that carrier of yours messed around with the firmware too much?

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It would say, the message application has stopped working or something very similar along the lines. Im not trashing the gs3 because it actually is a great phone with plenty features i just like the way a iphone works better..i think a iphone is more of a complete phone

BaldiMac said:

Because channel inventory is the difference between shipped and sold! That's the point.

For a given quarter:
Sold = Shipped - (Change in Channel Inventory)

The iPhone 4S likely decreased it's channel inventory. The S3 likely increased it's channel inventory.

Which part isn't straightforward?

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What's complicated is that channel inventory does not directly relate to sales.

See Tim Cook - Apple and Samsung treat channel inventory differently because Apple does not include it's retail operations in channel inventory.

Also, kdarling is right. Shipped is sold from the perspective of Samsung or Apple.

Here's Tim Cook:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/745...-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single

Keep in mind that the channel inventory is only for the indirect channel. But, it’s not used for to support any direct sales, and direct sales are Apple retail sales, Apple online sales, Apple education sales. And so, I don’t want to give you a specific guidance on iPad sales. It’s important to keep that in mind, and that’s just not the case with iPad, but it’s the case with all products. I know that there are some companies out there they refer to their channel inventory in terms of their gross sales, but we don’t do that, because we feel very strongly that it only supports the channel sales, so that’s how we calculate it.

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So Shipped = Sold

pacalis said:

It's not just my definition of sold. And kdarling is right. Shipped is sold from the perspective of Samsung or Apple.

So Shipped = Sold

The reason you have complicated it by introducing the conversation about channel inventory. Channel inventory is not an

Here's Tim Cook:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/745...-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=single

Keep in mind that the channel inventory is only for the indirect channel. But, it’s not used for to support any direct sales, and direct sales are Apple retail sales, Apple online sales, Apple education sales. And so, I don’t want to give you a specific guidance on iPad sales. It’s important to keep that in mind, and that’s just not the case with iPad, but it’s the case with all products. I know that there are some companies out there they refer to their channel inventory in terms of their gross sales, but we don’t do that, because we feel very strongly that it only supports the channel sales, so that’s how we calculate it.

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If you want to argue that shipped = sold, there isn't much point to the discussion. I was quite clear on how I was using the terms.

BaldiMac said:

If you want to argue that shipped = sold, there isn't much point to the discussion. I was quite clear on how I was using the terms.

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Shipped = Sold from the perspective of Apple, Samsung and their investors.

What you are trying to do is argue consumer demand, from a mix of supply, strategy and demand data.

What we do know is the lower bound of Samsung's re-seller demand (because if may have been constrained by supply). We can not really infer consumer demand from that (i.e. maybe the resellers got it wildly wrong in either direction). Separately, we can probably assume that the 4S is no longer supply constrained and so we know the sum of Apple's consumer re-seller demand (some portion of shipments) and Apples' retail demand (the other portion of shipments). But none of that is enough to really make a call - too many unknowns and can't solve the equation.

I get your argument. Your saying that if Samsung and Apple have similar inventory policies, and the retailers have similar inventory policies between phones, and 4S demand has dropped, Samsung is pushing up it's channel than the retailers are getting stuck with bags of GS3s, while 4S are being reduced in an orderly way to happy consumers. More or less.

What I'm saying is that there are so many potential breaks in that logic, that it is far more useful just to say Samsung GS3 did better this quarter than the 4S. Cause as far as their sales are concerned (which is their shipped numbers) they did.

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Hey, maybe we save it for the next quarter. Then if they're a loads of GS3s out there, and the channel was overstuffed, we'll see a big drop in shipments.

pacalis said:

Shipped = Sold from the perspective of Apple, Samsung and their investors.

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I wasn't arguing from their perspective. I don't think channel stuffing earns you the title of best seller. As I said, I was clear on the definitions that I was using.

What you are trying to do is argue consumer demand, from a mix of supply, strategy and demand data.

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No, I'm discussing the number of units sold to end users.

What we do know is the lower bound of Samsung's re-seller demand (because if may have been constrained by supply). We can not infer consumer demand from that. Separately, we can probably assume that the 4S is no longer supply constrained and so we know the sum of Apple's consumer re-seller demand (some portion of shipments) and Apples' retail demand (the other portion of shipments).

I get your argument. Your saying that if Samsung and Apple have similar inventory policies, and the retailers have similar inventory policies between phones, and 4S demand has dropped, Samsung is pushing up it's channel than the retailers are getting stuck with bags of GS3s, while 4S are being reduced in an orderly way to happy consumers. More or less.

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Not sure why you are arguing supply and demand. We have shipment number from SA. The question I was discussing was what portion of those were sold to end users. I think it's likely that more than 1.8 million of those GS3's that SA claims were shipped by Samsung were not sold to end users by the end of the quarter.

What I'm saying is that there are so many potential breaks in that logic, that it is far more useful just to say Samsung GS3 did better this quarter than the 4S. Cause as far as their sales are concerned (which is their shipped numbers) they did.

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"Better" opens up a whole 'nother can of worms! Is it better to ship more and make less money?

I think you should stick with, "according to SA, More GS3's were shipped in Q3 than iPhone 4S's."

samcraig said:

So you use every stock app of Apple's?

No different in my opinion. An uninstallable app is an uninstallable app. You should be able to delete any app you don't want.

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My purchase of an Apple device is a contract with Apple, not Yahoo. They tell me what's on it from the beginning. There is a difference.

rdlink said:

My purchase of an Apple device is a contract with Apple, not Yahoo. They tell me what's on it from the beginning. There is a difference.

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Well - then you must have had a problem when there was a youtube app.

You're entitled to your feelings. I just find it silly.

samcraig said:

Well - then you must have had a problem when there was a youtube app.

You're entitled to your feelings. I just find it silly.

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No, because they told me it was on there before I bought it. And it was an Apple App.

rdlink said:

No, because they told me it was on there before I bought it. And it was an Apple App.

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Again - you can choose where you draw the line. Personally - an app I can't uninstall is an app I can't install. But if I can't uninstall and app - and it's one I will never use - then, for me - it makes no difference whether Samsung put it on there, ATT or whoever. It's dead weight no matter what.

samcraig said:

Again - you can choose where you draw the line. Personally - an app I can't uninstall is an app I can't install. But if I can't uninstall and app - and it's one I will never use - then, for me - it makes no difference whether Samsung put it on there, ATT or whoever. It's dead weight no matter what.

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Slowly mold the argument if you want. My original post stands true. Android is like the old feature phone days in that it allows handset manufacturers, third parties and carriers to conspire with each other to the detriment of the consumer.

Take my example, (and hundreds of others like it) for instance. TMO, Yahoo and Samsung (or maybe just Samsung and Yahoo) got together and force loaded Yahoo's apps on the phone (Apps that duplicated, overlapped or preempted some of the native Android functionality) without publicizing it, or giving me the ability to remove them. Why? Because putting them on the device benefitted Yahoo and Samsung much more than the consumer. If it were a consumer win they would have put the app front and center in the marketing.

Those third-party, unremovable apps are the Android equivalent to the "free" crapware that you have found on Windows PCs from Dell, HP, Gateway, etc. for decades. If you can't see the clear distinction between that and the native iPhone apps that can't be removed you just don't want to.

rdlink said:

If you can't see the clear distinction between that and the native iPhone apps that can't be removed you just don't want to.

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And exactly what is the clear distinctino between a Yahoo! app that can't be removed and a Stocks app that can't be removed?

Just switched from SIII to iphone5. Tried hard to like SIII but for some reason it doesn't have something which iphones have.

rdlink said:

If you can't see the clear distinction between that and the native iPhone apps that can't be removed you just don't want to.

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You can't see something that isn't there. Again - there's no distinction (I've given you my parameters)

An app that the manufacturer or 3rd party forces on a user and that can't be removed is the same no matter what to me.

You should be able to remove any app on any phone. Do you disagree?

Any app that can't be removed - and more importantly is imbedded in the OS (i.e. integrated) is bloat if it's not what the customer prefers to use. Do you disagree?

Are you saying that Apple using google maps and google search didn't benefit Apple?

How about the fact that until recently - Baidu in china wasn't an option - yet Baidu is the #1 search engine there. But users were "forced" to use Google.

To paraphrase you, If you see a clear distinction between that and the native iPhone apps that can't be removed you just want to."

The Galaxy S3 is kind of old news now.

The new king of the hill I think is the Galaxy Note 2.

This is a way better phone than the S3 supposedly.

The iPhone 5 can't compare either.

When you have them side-by-side, the iPhone 5 looks like we're back in the Stone Age.

Apple should make an iPhad to compete with the Note 2.

Basically the iPhad is a cross between an iPhone 5 and the iPad Mini.

With a screen size of 5.95", which is right in the middle between the iPhone 5's 4" screen and the iPad Mini's 7.9" screen, iPhad has a bigger display than the Note 2's 5.5" screen.

The iPhad will have an aspect ratio of 14:9 meaning it will be EQUALLY compatible iPhone 5 16:9 apps and iPad 4:3 apps.

The iPad finally eliminates the need to have BOTH an iPhone and an iPad.

It's just small enough to be a smartphone and just big enough to be a tablet.

The iPhad - Think Middle

EmpireITtech said:

Well their cycles aren't inline so you will always kinda have to do that bc you can't compare the iPhone5 to the S3 either by that logic

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I don't want to compare the sales of either, even if they were released on the same day. I am simply saying, this is garbage "news".

The whole Apple vs. Samsung thing is getting old. Go to your wireless carrier's retail store, play with both, watch comparison videos, and decide what is best for you.. If you're happy with your phone, who gives a damn what brand is on it?

BuckusToothnail said:

The Galaxy S3 is kind of old news now.



When you have them side-by-side, the iPhone 5 looks like we're back in the Stone Age.

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...probably the opposite

Ultimately - why do people care or get so passionate about this. As long as you love the phone you have - it's of little relevance. Sure if you're a stock holder it might matter more. But certainly not to go to verbal blows over.

It's not like either company is hurting and will be out of business anytime soon. And it's not like it changes how your device works.

iRumored said:

I don't want to compare the sales of either, even if they were released on the same day. I am simply saying, this is garbage "news".

The whole Apple vs. Samsung thing is getting old. Go to your wireless carrier's retail store, play with both, watch comparison videos, and decide what is best for you.. If you're happy with your phone, who gives a damn what brand is on it?

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Wait, did you just agree with me??
I've been saying this since smart phones came out lol (and really any PC/Mac related)
I love both and use both. Hell, I'm using Linux, for web hosting, almost as much as Windows or OSX. In the end, it's up to you which you prefer, and that doesn't mean you have to bash the others who like the opposite.