Cherry-picked data claims Apple is beating Samsung in Europe

New research states that Apple's iPhone has had a remarkable rise to overtake Samsung in the EU, but that headline claim doesn't stand up to the gentlest scrutiny.

In February 2024, research firm Canalys did say that Apple returned to pole position in European smartphone sales during the 2023 holiday quarter. It also said that this meant Apple had overtaken its main rival for the first time in seven quarters.

Now separate research from Stocklytics, based on data from Statista, agrees that Apple has beaten Samsung, and that this has shaken up the market. But it says this is the first time since 2014.

That's based on a chart showing sales from 2010 to 2022, although it's labelled as being to 2023. This chart shows Samsung rising sharply to overtake Apple in 2014, then remaining ahead until 2021, when both firms almost tied.

For some reason, Stocklytics is ignoring the 2010 start, the 2014 time Samsung overtook Apple, and the 2021 quarter where the two both had around 32% of the market.

Instead, it's chosen to focus on the years 2019 to 2023, for no clear reason. Nonetheless, over that period, it says Apple's market share rose by "a remarkable 32%," where Samsung's dropped "from an astounding 34.44%" to 31%.

Line chart illustrating the market share trends of Apple and Samsung in Europe from 2010 to 2023; Apple rising to 2023, Samsung declining then stabilizing.

The X-axis confusingly seems to stop at 2022, but the figures behind it go up to the end of 2023 (Source: Stocklytics)

That 31% for the end of 2023 matches what the firm's chart says for 2022. So assuming that its latest figures for Apple are also for 2022, Apple's rise took it to 33.35% of the market.

Stocklytics does also say, though, that Q1 2024 saw Samsung rise to 32%, while Apple dipped back to 25%. This quarter is when Samsung launches its latest Galaxy smartphones, and is traditionally also when the initial sales of new iPhones taper off.

The research concludes with the latest data from the month of June 2024. That sees Apple on 30% and Samsung on 33%, which can't really be said to shake up the EU market.

Separately, if you're keeping score, figures from IDC say that globally, Apple is beating Samsung. Those worldwide figures for the whole of 2023, see Apple on 20.1% market share, compared to Samsung on 19.4%.

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5 Comments

hammeroftruth 1354 comments · 16 Years

About 4 months ago

“There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”

Mark Twain

DAalseth 3033 comments · 6 Years

hammeroftruth said:

“There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”
Mark Twain

You know, it’s funny. I was always good at math. Arithmetic, algebra, geometry I aced. Calculus was a bit of a struggle, but I ended up with Bs. But the two times I studied statistics it was like hitting a wall. Oh I passed, because they asked “calculate the standard deviation of these numbers” and that sort of thing. I could do the operations just fine. But as far as what they meant, I don’t have a clue. Ok, average is fine, but beyond that it’s all hand waving and gibberish to me.

DAalseth said:

hammeroftruth said:

“There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”
Mark Twain

You know, it’s funny. I was always good at math. Arithmetic, algebra, geometry I aced. Calculus was a bit of a struggle, but I ended up with Bs. But the two times I studied statistics it was like hitting a wall. Oh I passed, because they asked “calculate the standard deviation of these numbers” and that sort of thing. I could do the operations just fine. But as far as what they meant, I don’t have a clue. Ok, average is fine, but beyond that it’s all hand waving and gibberish to me.

I was and still am terrible at math, but what I did find funny was my statistics class teacher said you can prove anything if you’re good at statistics. It’s just an art of selling small bits of bullshit inside what seems to be a correct analysis.

muthuk_vanalingam 1367 comments · 8 Years

DAalseth said:

hammeroftruth said:

“There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”
Mark Twain

You know, it’s funny. I was always good at math. Arithmetic, algebra, geometry I aced. Calculus was a bit of a struggle, but I ended up with Bs. But the two times I studied statistics it was like hitting a wall. Oh I passed, because they asked “calculate the standard deviation of these numbers” and that sort of thing. I could do the operations just fine. But as far as what they meant, I don’t have a clue. Ok, average is fine, but beyond that it’s all hand waving and gibberish to me.

My experience with maths was similar to yours. Pretty good at majority of the topics in maths. And struggled royally in statistics alone - couldn't figure out what they meant back then.

thedba 790 comments · 12 Years

hammeroftruth said:

DAalseth said:

hammeroftruth said:

“There are lies, damned lies and statistics.”
Mark Twain

You know, it’s funny. I was always good at math. Arithmetic, algebra, geometry I aced. Calculus was a bit of a struggle, but I ended up with Bs. But the two times I studied statistics it was like hitting a wall. Oh I passed, because they asked “calculate the standard deviation of these numbers” and that sort of thing. I could do the operations just fine. But as far as what they meant, I don’t have a clue. Ok, average is fine, but beyond that it’s all hand waving and gibberish to me.

I was and still am terrible at math, but what I did find funny was my statistics class teacher said you can prove anything if you’re good at statistics. It’s just an art of selling small bits of bullshit inside what seems to be a correct analysis.

Statistics come up with wrong conclusions when the statistician collects the data wrongly.
Example:
We want to find what percentage of the population of our local town are atheists.
We take a sample of people near the centre of town and come up with the answer only 5%.
Well a good statistician will ask certain questions. How was the sample chosen? Was it on a Sunday after mass outside the church near the town square?
The above is an example of a biased sample.

In mathematics there many such tricks, that if one isn’t paying attention, can lead to incorrect results.
I can prove that 0 = 2 starting with the simple and true equation in trigonometry of (sinx)^2 + (cosx)^2 = 1