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Comment by gradstudent | Hacker News Reader

The article is misleading. This is not Galaxy S vs iPhone but a comparison of total volume of all smartphones moved by Samsung (many of which are cheap junk) vs total volume of iPhones moved by Apple

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How on earth is it misleading? It simply states that Samsung smartphones outsold iPhones which runs the gamut of Apple's smartphone offerings. What other Apple smartphones are there to measure the numbers against?

The title is linkbait. If the article title was honest it would read "Samsung sells more smartphones than Apple". Instead, it implies that Samsung has a top-end smartphone that sells better than Apple's iPhone. Which is not true. If you need confirmation that this is how people are interpreting the headline look no further than many of the comments in this very thread.

Wasn't misleading to me, and shouldn't be to you. I didn't know Samsung had just one top end smartphone, why wouldn't the title say the specific phone if that was the comparison?

>The title is linkbait

You said the 'article' was misleading.

The article refers to one device from Apple vs tens from Samsung. I think it would be fairer to compare with one device, such as their most popular one.

Why would that be fairer? Apple chooses to compete in the market with a clear lineup of 3 device-classes that each have multiple models differing in the amount of memory only. They don't offer low-end models. They obviously think that this is the better strategy. Samsung thinks it is better served by building more models to serve a higher range of customers. It is perfectly fair to compare which strategy fares best - and by number of units sold Samsung seems to be ahead. By revenue, Apple seems to be ahead. Whether that balance is going to tip is an interesting question, but it's not answered in this article.

Unfair would be to compare the number of macs sold vs. the number of android phones sold since those devices don't compete against each other on the same market.

Apple sells the 3GS in the low end market.

Edit: My view may be too US based, but the 3GS costs nothing after carrier subsidy.

The 3GS is apples low end model, that doesn't mean it is low end compared to other models on the market. An 8GB 3GS sells for ~ 370 Euros. That price may be a bargain for that model, but I can buy Samsung phones much much cheaper.

Edit: Response to the parents edit: Yes, your view is US-based. If I buy a phone and get a phone contract without subsidy, my contract is cheaper - up to 10 euros/month. I'd be surprised if that's much different in the US - you always pay for the subsidy in one way or another.

Any phone with a 480x320 screen and free on contract (at least in the US) is low end. The iPhone 4 would be midrange and the 4S would be high but not the highest end.

The 3GS is not free on contract in Germany. Fact is that there are cheaper phones and that may be of importance in markets where the average wage is lower than in the us. And since the article is about world-wide number of devices shipped, that makes a diffence.

In what world are the iPhone 3GS and the iPhone 4 the same device? Completely different hardware that runs the same OS, just like Samsung.

No, I'd rather pick the arbitrary metric of comparing the two lowest end ones.

Or we could compare the end results of two different business strategies.

The title conveys the message perfectly. You are upset about the fact and you want to blame someone for it, this time, the title. Don't worry, time will heal.

Right, my side is losing in revenue, so I pick profit, now it's losing in profit so I pick number of shipped devices, now it's losing in that so I pick activations, or "time using phone per day" or whatever makes me feel good.

This happens all the time when people make Apple / iPhone vs some-Android-manufacturer / Android comparisons - someone from whatever "side" has the lower number always tries to re-frame the competition about being about another metric, as if the whole thing will be done and settled if we only have a number to tell us which is better.

It's not outsold. It's outshipped, and it's outshipping large multiples of SKUs against Apple's.

The article says it's comparing the total volume of phone sales, not just the Galaxy S line.

And you can quite convincingly argue that Apple may come to regret ignoring this segment, just as they did in the heyday of the PC.

But if the total volume of iPhones still includes the three year old 3GS, would it be fair to exclude Samsung's entry line?

In the UK it's £319 for a 3GS. That's still a very expensive phone and you certainly couldn't describe it as entry level.

Samsung sells Android phones from around £89.99 [1] (probably cheaper, that was just a quick search). Depending on how you define 'smartphone' this article could also be including even cheaper (non-android) models at around the £50 mark [2].

[1] http://shop.orange.co.uk/mobile-phones/samsung-galaxy-mini-s...

[2] http://www.tesco.com/direct/tesco-mobile-samsung-cht-335-met...

That's true. And there are really cheap ones. But it's not only the Galaxy S and the rest is £90 crap. There are price points and models in between.

If we compare notebook sales between Apple and let's say Dell, do we only count the 1000+ models just because Apple does not sell their notebooks below 1000? We can argue if the 1100 MacBook is as "good" as the 600 Dell, but who cares?

If people buy smartphones for 190 which may be crappy by your/mine/our standard and are happy, so be it. Let's count them.

Yes, what I'm saying is that there is an implication here that Samsung is winning against the iPhone. In reality they are simply selling handsets at price points Apple is not even competing for.

The example you give of Dell vs Apple is a perfect example. Nobody would make the Apple/Dell comparison because it would not be news that more Dell laptops are sold than Apple ones. Whereas this article is trying to make news out of Samsung vs iPhone, due to the fact Samsung has an 'iPhone-like-product'.

It is misleading. Not if you read every word, sit back, process, go all hacker-analytic on it... and consequently realise it's not really news. But if you read the article in the way it appears to have been editorialised, picture of S III, focus on the newer models... the fact the somewhat spurious comparison is even being drawn to begin with, you could be inclined to believe this article is saying 'S III et al are beating the iPhone'.

It's subtle sure, but it ultimately is not an accurate title for the article, and is very easy to misconstrue. A fairer title would be something like: "Samsung is selling handsets to a broader market spectrum than Apple, will this lead to greater profits in the long-run?" - boring title, granted.

Yes, what I'm saying is that there is an implication here that Samsung is winning against the iPhone. In reality they are simply selling handsets at price points Apple is not even competing for.

What an absurd way to frame it...

Companies care about units sold (market share) and profit.

Samsung is winning on units sold, Apple on profit.

Nobody cares about one individual model "winning" over some other, you can't measure that anyway. How many people would have bought an iphone if there was no roughly equivalent $300 samsung available? How many wouldn't have bought a smartphone at all if there was no $300 samsung?

Sure, it is an absurd notion, notice my italics. But that's how people think, they want to know 'which is better'... or argue about it.

>> Nobody cares about one individual model "winning" over some other

The Internet begs to differ.

And what percentage of the sales are the cheap phones vs the expensive ones? You seem to imply that people mostly buy the cheap phones.

Perhaps Apple is simply overpriced, ever thought of that? Prices for electronics are always falling, there is no law of nature that demands high end phones have to cost 800$.

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