Here's an example of how statistics can deceive.
The iPhone is putting heavy under pressure on Blackberry sales, supposedly, according to a Reuters report appearing in NYT.
Blackberry's share of the U.S. smartphone market fell to 41% in the first quarter of 2010 from 55% the previous year.
This, however, could be one of those misleading stats. There may be new buyers of the iPhone who never had a smartphone before. Thus, Blackberry may be holding its own in smartphone sales in terms of absolute sales, and a new type of buyer has entered the market for iPhones.
The Reuters/NYT story does not provide enough data (absolute sales data) to make a informed conclusion. Beware misleading statistics.
Naturally, Harvard Business Review is running the misleading stats.
Some interesting data here to analyze:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.macrumors.com/2010/06/30/admob-ios-platform-continues-to-lead-in-mobile-data-usage-but-android-surging/
It's some help in figuring out what is really going on, although this info too could be misleading.