Just imagine, for a moment, you’re Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook.
Here’s the situation. Apple’s share of the worldwide smartphone market has fallen to just 17.3% during the first quarter of 2013, with Google’s Android claiming 75% of the market. In Australia, Apple’s marketshare slumped from 30.6% a year ago to just 28.1%, while Android grew from 57.5% to 69.4%.
Android is also the smartphone market leader across five major EU economies (Germany, Great Britain, France and Spain) with 69.6% combined marketshare (Apple had 18.4%), while also leading in the US (51.7% to 41.4%) and China (69.4% to 25.1%). The only major market Android trails Apple in is Japan (44% to 51.7%).
Now, faced with those numbers, what would you say if you had to unveil a new version of your iOS mobile phone platform – iOS 7 – at your Worldwide Developer Conference?
“People are using our products substantially more than anyone else’s,” says Tim Cook, with “#1 [in] customer usage” emblazoned on the screen behind him.
So how does Cook justify these “#1 [in] customer usage” comments? He claims Apple’s iPad had a tablet marketshare of 82%, its users viewed more websites and quotes a hazy figure on customer satisfaction.
And sure, Apple does lead the tablet market – thus Cook’s choice to compare tablet marketshare rather than smartphone marketshare. But even there, figures from the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Tablet Tracker for the first quarter of 2013 show Apple’s worldwide tablet marketshare slumped from 58.1% to 39.6% year-on-year during first quarter of 2013. Yes, Apple’s well ahead of second placed Samsung (17.9% marketshare), but it’s a long way from the 82% marketshare claimed by Cook.
As for claiming market leadership by the number of web browsers or customer satisfaction, they certainly are non-traditional ways to measure your market dominance. Some people would say slightly misleading, even.
Cook’s customer satisfaction figure is particularly questionable. Sure, a recent Washington Post – ABC News poll 74% of US adults hold a favourable view of Apple – with 16% unfavourable – compared to 82% favourable for Google. But the great thing is that customer satisfaction is so slippery that it is easy to conduct a survey showing any figure you like, depending on how and when you survey your customers.
Well, Old Taskmaster says this is all pure genius. If the standard figures don’t show what you want – say market leadership being determined by marketshare – grab some figures that do. Of course, it’s not just a tactic that can be used by the likes of Apple – any business can do it.
That’s why 75% more customers say Taskmaster Enterprises widgets are filled with chocolatastic goodness. We’re now a market leader – and you can be one too!
Just pick some favourable figures and promote them heavily – just like Tim Cook!
Get it done – today!
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
