This is how Samsung fans see the recent financial results announced by the two companies, but the reality is a little different. Apple announced revenues of 35 billion dollars and profit of 8.8 billion dollars, while Samsung (all divisions) had receipts higher and profit of almost 6 billion dollars. Although many market analysis agencies say that Samsung sold 50 million smartphones, no one knows for sure how many the company sold because the Asians did not make any mention of the number of units sold in Q2 2012, but this is how they work.
Samsung is a company that doesn't say anything, it just announces fabulous things that are supported by the imagination of analysts that we know rarely get any predictions right. When we talk about Samsung sales, we don't refer to sales to users, but to sales to partner stores and the 50 million smartphones sold to stores incorporate several tens/hundreds of models with prices between $100 and $5-600, so we are talking about an extremely varied range of mobile terminals.
Maybe it is too little important that Apple sells 3 iPhone models and Samsung a few tens/hundreds of smartphone models, but it is important to remember that in the case of Apple we are talking about 26 million iPhones sold directly to users, and at Samsung we are talking about 50 million smartphones sold to stores all over the world, but only Samsung knows for sure how many units were sold directly to users, this being the statistic that matters. I'm sure that Samsung sold more smartphones than Apple in this fiscal quarter, but I'm sure that the difference is not as big as the analysts make it out to be. It is not the first time that analysts err and the best indications are Apple's financial results, which are wrong in 90% of cases.
I can say that Samsung's strategy of presenting misleading results and leaving room for speculation will not be so good in the future because at some point the analysts will start to deviate by presenting lower figures than the real ones.
