

Fun With Numbers - danilocampos
http://daringfireball.net/2011/11/fun_with_numbers

======
mkramlich
His point has an analogue in traditional book publishing. Historically they
would decide (at least, in the US, up to say the 90's) what was a "bestseller"
only after first excluding any book or genre they did not approve of, like
romance, westerns, military adventure, the Bible, etc. Which just happened to
have very high and consistent sales. In other words, the actual bestsellers
were first excluded, then among the remaining they decided which of those
also-rans were the least also-ranny, and called them the bestsellers.

Numbers: the best way to lie.

------
notatoad
I actually enjoy gruber's posts most of the time, but this article is
incredibly stupid, for exactly the reasons he posts about. If you include the
iPad numbers, the numbers for all other tablets become meaninglessly small. So
if you want to write an article about the number two tablets, _the only way to
do it is to exclude the ipad_. The article isn't about how successful the iPad
is, no matter how desperately John wants to be reminded of that.

~~~
mechanical_fish
As John points out, this analysis also excludes the Nook.

 _if you want to write an article about the number two tablets, the only way
to do it is to exclude the ipad._

Not at all. You can show, and write, exactly what you just said one sentence
earlier: "The iPad has 90% market share, and the other companies split the
remaining 10%, with five companies each taking 1 to 2 percent of the market."

What about that is so difficult for mortals to understand?

Even if you never mention Apple more than once, it's important, when (e.g.)
pointing to the fact that HP has almost twice the share of unit sales as
Motorola, to recognize that you're comparing a 2% share with a 1% share, not a
20% share with a 10% share. There's a big difference between 1% and 10%, both
qualitative and quantitative. For example: Smaller numbers are closer to the
noise level, and therefore more subject to fluctuation. 1% could really be 2%,
and could easily jump to 2% in the next quarter, but it's unlikely that 10% is
really 20%. And, lo and behold, this turns out to be relevant to this very
case, because in fact HP's numbers have probably been goosed by a one-time
money-losing giveaway of Touchpads. That's a fluctuation.

~~~
notatoad
The analysis excludes the nook because it is an e reader, not a tablet. And
yes, that matters. We talk about tablets because they are a platform for third
party stuff to run on, nook is not a platform for anybody but B&N.

"Why is this so hard for mortals to understand"

No need to be an asshole

------
jwallaceparker
This article reminds me of what I like to call the 'Ernie loves Skittles'
story.

My childhood friend Ernie loved Skittles. He ate them at lunch every day.

But he would get so angry if someone at our lunch table ate any other type of
candy. He'd say things like, "Starburst candy is stupid. Skittles are better."
Or, "Why are you eating Smarties? Are you stupid?"

Eventually we just had to say, "Ernie. Relax. Skittles are great but there are
other candies, too."

------
trotsky
Seems a bit like a Yankees fan complaining bitterly about the press covering
the National League too. It's not like there is any shortage of coverage about
who is number one in tablets. There is obviously real competition for the
#2-#5 slots (witness all the blood in the water) so why does it matter if an
analyst report focuses on that?

~~~
danilocampos
> ...why does it matter if an analyst report focuses on that?

If you finish the piece, it matters because the resulting conclusions come
from some sort of bizarro world. Right now the tablet game really comes down
to Apple, Barnes & Noble and Amazon. (The Nook, which has sold literally
orders of magnitude more units than the TouchPad, isn't even being counted.)

But the report wants to reassure PC manufacturers that, somehow, that they are
still in the hunt.

From TFA:

"Including the iPad makes statements like this, from NPD, seem absurd:

 _PC manufacturers are dominant in the tablet space, as four of the top five
tablet brands already have a strong U.S. consumer PC presence. Only two of the
top five brands play in the smartphone market._

NPD is trying to paint a picture that there’s a contest going on where there
is none. I repeat the following from their report:

 _76 percent of consumers who purchased a non-Apple tablet didn’t even
consider the iPad, an indication that a large group of consumers are looking
for alternatives, and an opportunity for the rest of the market to grow their
business._

That’s one way to put it. Another way is that 92 percent of U.S. tablet buyers
considered an iPad, and 89 percent bought an iPad, which means 97 percent of
tablet buyers who merely considered an iPad bought an iPad, and if not for the
8 percent of tablet buyers who for whatever reason did not consider an iPad,
none of these companies would have sold even 100,000 tablets over the first
nine months of 2011."

~~~
Kylekramer
OK? So? 8% of the market is "a large group of consumers". Most of top tablet
makers are PC manufacturers. The original piece was entitled "U.S. Tablet
Sales (excluding Apple) Exceed 1.2 Million Units in First 10 Months of 2011",
and the article is about that. Gruber's piece is basically saying "I know this
isn't about the iPad, but why aren't you talking about the iPad?" The original
piece acknowledges the elephant in the room, says for the purposes of this
article they will ignore the elephant in the room, and then analyzes the data
as they say they would. What is wrong with that?

If PC manufacturers take this report as an indication that they are safely in
the hunt in the tablet space, then they would be complete and utter idiots.
But there is still information to be gathered other than "Apple won, give up".

~~~
danilocampos
> But there is still information to be gathered other than "Apple won, give
> up".

There most certainly is more information.

Namely, how it was that Apple won and how it is that another company could
maybe come close to trying. That would be a more useful analysis than "Hey,
so, this guy has half a percent more of the market than this guy, but let's
pretend that the iPad doesn't exist and say it's actually more like 6%."
Pretending that fighting over the table scraps is a viable business is hardly
impressive, here.

And then you get little chunks of just straight bullshit, like this. "PC
manufacturers are dominant in the tablet space."

No, they aren't. They're selling handfuls of units. The dominant players in
tablet land aren't commodity PC manufacturers.

This is about as useful as saying I'm dominant in my run for the presidency
when you only count polling from my friends, family and coworkers.

NPD doesn't get off the hook for writing something absurd just because their
title matches their thesis and they turned it to their homeroom teacher on
time.

~~~
Kylekramer
Everyone is really misinterpreting that PC manufacturers are dominant line.
They are saying that in the market besides the iPad, HP/Samsung/Acer/Asus are
doing surprisingly well compared to HTC/Motorola/Nokia/Blackberry considering
these devices usually run what were originally mobile phone OSs. But because
everyone is up in arms about the fact the iPad wasn't considered, they miss
that point and assume it is saying something (that PC makers are actually
dominant) that it clearly isn't.

------
cleverjake
Does anyone in their right mind actually have to be reminded the iPad is the
most successful tablet?

~~~
evmar
It's strange -- when misreporting mischaracterizes an underdog, I feel
sympathy towards that underdog. But when someone calls out reporting like
this, I find it more offensive than informative.

In theory perhaps I should treat them the same, but the best analogy I can
come up for this piece reads is something dramatic and ugly like "this article
claims economic conditions in South America are improving, but check out how
poor they are compared to the US!"

~~~
Rajiv_N
Your argument would almost be a good one if NPD had not used quotes such as:

“According to NPD’s Consumer Tracking Service, 76 percent of consumers who
purchased a non-Apple tablet didn’t even consider the iPad, an indication that
a large group of consumers are looking for alternatives, and an opportunity
for the rest of the market to grow their business.”

If you overlay this argument on your South American analogy it would read
something like:

Economic conditions in South America are improving, an indication that poverty
has declined.

If you think about it, this does not make sense. Improvements in economic
conditions may have no effect on poverty at all if the money is not trickling
down.

NPD was probably targeting this report at some PC manufacturer that was
looking to invest in the tablet sector. It is probably 'market research'
reporting such as this that creates bubbles such as Groupon.

~~~
evmar
I saw your response late, sorry for missing it. That quote is a good one. I
agree "76% of consumers who purchased a non-Apple tablet" is constructed to
sound like a big number but is really a small one. Not sure why your comment
shows up grayed out.

------
zmmmmm
Amazingly for once, I agree with Gruber about the report being weird - but not
with his reasoning.

What I don't understand is why look at a time window a significant portion of
for which the primary OS under consideration (Android) didn't even exist on
tablets. The Android tablet ecosystem effectively only came to market in a
meaningful way in April(and even then it took several months more to release
world-wide). Why would someone make a report in which half the considered time
period is more or less irrelevant?

------
ceol
I wish he had more to back up his 10m US iPad sales than "a conservative
guess." 40% of all iPad sales being in the US seems a bit much.

Maybe he could extrapolate from the other manufacturers' worldwide sales? So
if Samsung sold 192,000 tablets in the US and 500,000 worldwide, his 40%
figure might make sense.

~~~
latch
I think 40% makes sense. Remember that for Apple, the US is a market above all
others. For a lot of other players, the US is, at best, just one of many
first-class citizens.

Apple is a US company, Samsung/HTC/Nokia/RIM/BLAH aren't. They market very
well to US consumers, both their products and their brand. Also, Apple
products tend to go on sale in the US first. Even if you cut it by half, the
numbers are still embarrassing for everyone else.

------
nestlequ1k
Now that Apple is getting it's clock cleaned in the smartphone market, time to
focus on how awesome the iPad is. Wait a couple years, iPad will be 15% of the
table market, then Grubertool will have to find something else to focus on.

~~~
wkaluss
Did Gruber made your Android phone cry? lets keep the "tool" part out, please.
Completely unnecessary.

Gruber's point is obviously biased towards Apple but it doesn't lack truth or
facts. NPD report is sketchy at best and gives a distorted view of the current
scene, which is the opposite of what this kind of reports should do.

As for the marketshare it's interesting because so far what we are seeing is
that the iPad is not behaving like the iPhone but more like the iPod. It makes
sense, after all. The phone market its heavily subsidized and people choose
phones based on carrier availability and special deals. A lot of the growth of
Android can be attributed to 2x1 deals, middle range phones that are not used
as smartphones and the lack of iPhone on Verizon and Sprint until recently. Im
not saying that Android isn't a great OS or that Android phones can't be
awesome and cutting edge -lots of them are-, just that when you analyze the
Android growth you cannot discount these things.

------
tzury
Option A:

TL;DR

    
    
        Apple   Apple  Apple
        iPad  iPad iPad iPad
        Tablet Tablet Tablet
        iOS iOS iOS  iOS iOS
    

Got you man, get a life, build something.

Someone at apple should give this guy a job so he can leave us alone.

Option B: Downvote.

I would have pick option B, but there is no down-votes for posts on HN.

~~~
siglesias
I think this comment would be more useful if you pointed out what you found
fault with in his argument.

~~~
tzury
this blog simply blogs about one thing which is praising iOS, this has been
going on for I have no idea how many months or years. every post on this blog,
gets to HN within about few minutes/seconds from its publishing time.

the message is not to daring fireball owner but to the HN community, please,
stop copy-pasting every single post just to get karma or whatever other
reasons.

