You still seem to be confusing relative shares with absolute numbers.
Market "share" refers to a percentage relative to the total number. E.g. if Apple and Android each sold ONE phone, they each had a 50% share of the sales market. If each sold 100 million phones, they still have 50% share each.
Year to year, Apple's market SHARE did not double; it's the NUMBER of devices they sold that did. Since Samsung's last year's lower number increased even more, their relative shares ended up almost even for the entire year.
If by "Year to year, Apple's market SHARE did not double" you mean "Year to year Apple's market SHARE
did double" you'd be right. To be clear we're talking about the US and the 4Q, which is what we've been discussing in both of these threads since this started with Apple's calendar 4Q earnings call.
In the 4Q Apple's US marketshare doubled YOY. You mentioned that Nielsen (or some other research firm) said it was a little bit closer then what Kantar said, but again if it didn't "double" by Nielsen's number it increased what, 95%? 99? I think it's ok to go with "doubled". It's not like Nielsen and Kantar's numbers were so far off that Apple possibly didn't have a monster quarter.
It seems you've gone to worldwide market share (or entire 2011) now and I believe the people here refer to that as "shifting the goalposts".
Second, thank you I understand how market share works. I also, didn't say that number of users doubled. I said market share can't double (which it did) if your users don't increase or grow (unless of course you're saying that 100% of activations were to current users). That was in response to your comment:
kdarling said:
None of the thread charts (nor the headlines) were about growth in number of iPhone users.
I was making the (correct) observation that there is very clearly a correlation between the doubling of market share and the growth of users. You seem to be saying that because the charts and headlines were not about growth of users, that that information couldn't be logically extrapolated from the data. It can. There was VERY obviously a huge growth in number of users.
.....
As for activations vs. sales vs. number of customers, that's also a simple concept:
- When an ATT customer buys their first iPhone, that's a sale and a reported activation.
- When that customer upgrades to a new phone, that's also a sale and its related activation. However, the number of customers did not change and thus the relative OS share does not change either.
- When a current customer upgrades from a iP4 to a 4S, and gives/sells their iP4 to someone else already on ATT, that will cause
TWO activations for a
single new sale... still with
no new customers. Heck, if the second person sold their old 3GS to get the used iP4, that's
three activations for one sale.
iPhone numbers reported by carriers are always artificially inflated that way, which is why
deeper analysis is needed to figure out what the actual sales number is.
Man, for someone who says you hope I don't "just nitpick things at leisure" you sure are....nitpicking things at leisure.
Did you read the entire article you linked? Here's the part that you should have read:
However, he also added that "In this quarter, the number of activations from things like gifted iPhones doesn't change the math much. We aren't sharing a number, but gifted phones is a relatively small portion of total activations."
And:
This means, remarkably, that unless 25% of iPhone activations went to reused handsets (which seems unlikely in light of Bloom's comments) then over half of all contract phones AT&T sold were iPhones.
In other words, of course there were people who activated a gifted iPhone, and of course there were people who upgraded their current iPhone, but again, there is very obviously a correlation between doubling of US market share (in 4Q 2011) and growth of users (not doubling, that would require a miracle
)
Let's look at the progression of your "argument":
Before any reports came out, the 3GS and 4 were "major factors" in iPhone sales growth
After we find out that the 3GS and 4 accounted for only 10% they went from being "major factors" to "not inconsequential"
Before any reports came out, you said the majority of users on Verizon were upgrading their iPhones and that "new customers seem to be leaning toward Android".
After we find out that that's not true, you backtrack and say "detractors love when I make rare mistakes" or some spiel about how you are almost always right and that you trusted an Apple blogger (mea culpa!).
Before any reports came out about sales by model you say that AT&T "only had" one model of phone
After we find out that having three models of phone made no difference because it was the newest model that was being activated the most, you say "I just meant there was no new phone". "Only had" implies that "only having" one model was a detriment. Of course, you'll come back and say that I'm making an implication that wasn't there (because really...how could I dispute that, right?).
I hope you're not this sloppy in your "carrier contractor" work. I understand you have tons of links and info stored "more then most" but have you actually read that stuff?
The only miracle here is you "predicting" something that no one on the planet did. Bravo.
