Mark Twain quoted Benjamin Disraeli saying that there were three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. This is the mythbusters edition about Canalys the supposedly professional mobile industry analyst house who would like to sell you their expensive reports. its been a while since we've had to do some work as the industry's stats police but unfortunately for the supposedly trustworthy Canalys, this is already the second time they are on our agenda.



On Mythbusters today: did Windows Phone really grow more last year than Android and iOS? We put Canalys to the test. And also in today's program the Microsoft way to cook your books. Mythbusters team tires to turn a yes into a no. How can you tell the opposite of the truth through the magic of statistics.



As the Superbowl was last weekend and this edition of Stats Police is so relevant to another powerhouse out of Seattle, lets do a bit of sports analogy here. Lets imagine you were a Denver fan but missed the game and rushed to your PC to find out who won, and you saw Canalys big news headline saying "Spectacular Superbowl for Broncos" you would be deliriously happy - until you found out from some other source that it was in fact Seattle Seahawks who won and Broncos were beaten by a huge margin. You would be livid - and you would most certainly hate Canalys for lying to you. Even if there perhaps was something spectacular that day in the Superbowl for the Denver Broncos that somehow Canalys felt like celbrating for whatever reason. Would that headline be unethical reporting of the Superbowl score? I think so even as it didn't explicitly say that Denver had won when it had lost. It clearly suggests to any normal reader that its was Denver who came out victorious. Ok. Hold that thought.



Today the supposedly ethical mobile industry analysts Canalys are not here because of prep school math errors like last time. This time they are here because their big press release for end of year 2013 and Q4 smartphone data has a headline and in-body text that leads any reasonable reader to think the opposite of what is happening. So. This is the headline by Canalys:

"Android on 80% of smart phones shipped in 2013 - Windows Phone’s 69% year-on-year increase in Q4 2013 made it the fastest growing platform"



Then to be very clear what they mean, here is the paragraph discussing that point again in the body of the text when they make the explicity comparison between the platforms:



"In OS terms, Windows Phone saw the fastest year-on-year growth among the major platforms, at 69%, despite a modest sequential decline of 6% from Q3 2013. This compares favorably with Android shipments, which grew 54% and iOS shipments, which grew just 7%."



(As usual with Stats Police work I do not provide the link which you can easily find by Googling Canalys but I will not endorse any 'statisticians' who mislead their audiences. And with our considerable relevance to the mobile industry, a link from this blog would enhance Canalys's Google page rank which I will of course not proivde for them.)



Ok, so what would any reasonable person conclude reading that headline and that paragraph about Windows Phone? They are clearly now growing faster and catching up quite strongly to Android and the iPhone, aren't they? When we read that the whole smartphone industry only grew 44% and Windows Phone a massive 69% then surely Windows Phone is on fire, isn't it? That has been the general theme of hundreds of articles that were published quoting these Canalys numbers. How Windows Phone is now on a solid growth trajectory, isn't it. Moving so fast compared to the iPhone that no doubt Windows Phone will shortly be challenging Apple and soon Google's Android too. Isn't that the obvious conclusion from that paragraph written by Canalys in their end-of-year review of the smartphone wars.



Ok. Earlier in the - ahem confusing - press release we see another number, even bigger than 69% as another annual growth number for Windows Phone. 90% growth from 2012 !! Wow that is astonishing when the industry only grew 44% isn't it. So lets now see how to lie with statistics and explore the integrity and possiblle Microsoft-bias of Canalys and the ethics of its 'analyst' Jingwen Wang.



Let me show you two growth rates, using the data as reported in the story so you see the picture and get my point. First the data in that paragraph I quoted:









The above picture may be freely used



Then we have the other annual growth rate that is somewhat confusing but the above is comparing Q4 data only from Q4 of 2013 to Q4 of 2012 as a growth rate percentage. Now lets rather look at the full year 2013 compared to 2012, also from the press release which looks like this:







The above picture may be freely used



Just so we are clear. Canalys didn't give the exact growth rate of Android full year 2012 to 2013 which we have to calculate out of their data but when you do the math you get to 67% growth rate (the green graph). Canalys gives the Windows Phone growth year 2012 to 2013 as 90% right in the top paragraph.



Ok. So both these annual growth numbers are magnificent aren't they, for Windows Phone. So lets do a pop quiz. If company A grew 100% in one year and its rival Company B in the same industry grew 10%, which one grew more that year? If you said Company A, you clearly didn't take statistics at the university. (Company B is also wrong answer). The only correct answer is 'it depends'. The growth rate cannot tell you who grew more. First. The illustrative example. Lets go to the Olympics now for another sports analogy. Lets imagine speed skating. One guy is leading and accelerating and moving even faster to escape the other dude. Then the other dude falls. After he falls, he gets up and starts to accelerate. Now his rate of acceleration is faster than the guy who is winning. He is accelerating from having fallen to the ice and sliding on his ass on the ice. So of course his acceleration rate is faster, from essentially zero. But he is still skating far more slowly than the guy who is now nearing the finish. You see where acceleration rate can be misleading. Even as one athlete was accelerating faster, the other guy was skating much faster.



So back to our answer. If Company A and Company B are the same size. Lets say both sell 100 units ( or 100 million or 100 dollars or whateer unit you want) and A grew 100% and B grew 10%, then Company A arrives at 200 million and Company B at 110 million. In this case Company A grew more. But now the astonishing part for those who didn't have Kelloggs cereal box statistics as their toys as children.. If Company A sold 5 million and Company B sold 100 million, now Company A grew to 10 milion but Company B grew to 110 million and Company B grew more! You cannot ever know which is growing more, by quoting a "growth rate" unless the two companies are the same size. That is why we never - EVER - use the growth rate as the primary measurement in this industry. Growth rate number ALWAYS favors the smaller guy which is why ONLY the propagandist PR departments of the small companies who try to look big, quote the growth rate numbers without giving the actual real growth numbers as well.



So understand the 'fundamentals of statistics' lesson of today. You cannot ever - ever - know quoting only a growth rate of two companies which grew MORE by talking about the growth rate, uniless they are the same size. You have to have some other numbers too to understand the real growth. It is possible to totally mislead an audience by using the growth rate as a misleading 'fact' to hide the fact that you are growing LESS than your rival. Yes. That is mathematically totally possible and statistically true in half of the cases. If you are the smaller guy, depending on the conditions, its very likely that you growth rate is stronger than the larger guy, but that the larger guy still grew more than you did. Ok. Sounds confusing. Lets draw another picture. This will shock you but you'll see why I am disgusted by the unethical behavior of Canalys.



Now lets take that exact identical data from the Canalys Press Release that had us drawning the second picture in the above, and apply the court test of witnesses. You know how they always make you swear 'tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth'? The above pictures ARE the truth. Canalys told the truth saying that the 'Growth Rate' for Windows Phone was more than the 'Growth Rate' for Andorid. So if that is 'the truth' what is then the 'whole truth'. Check out this picture. Exact same data but told now as 'the whole truth' by the 'actual growth' not the 'growrth rate':









The above picture may be freely used



Yes I know. I know. I KNOW !!! Yes. Andorid grew from 471 million to 785 million in one year ie its real growth was a massive 314 million. In the same period Windows Phone grew from 16.9 million to 32.1 million which is a paltry 15.2 million. Android growth is TWENTY TIMES bigger than Windows Phone growth from 2012 to 2013.



How can we illustrate 20 times faster. Ah the Mythbusting team is ready. We take another sport. Lets take the most ridiculous Olympic sport, that of walking. We have a race you and me. We start up there in Seattle again, on Interstate 5 and head South. You must use Olympic walking rules. I show up in a gunmetal-gray rental Audi A5 convertible and I speed off at 60 miles per hour. Yes. Car doing 60 miles (100km/h) or man walking. That is 20 times faster. WHY would anyone dare to SUGGEST that the walking dude is winning?



Android is CRUSHING Windows Phone. Never in a million years can Windows Phone catch up to Android if Android keeps growing TWENTY TIMES more than Windows Phone. Come on. This is basic math. Let me show you the picture one other way, again the same Canalys data exactly as in the Press Release and totally consistent with that silly headline and their silly text:









The above picture may be freely used



Yes. I know I know I KNOW. That is the reality. That is the whole truth. Whoever can look at that picture and then decide, hey, I'll write a headline that suggests that the red guy is winning - this is the deliberately misleading newspaper headline that the Broncos won the Superbowl. This is how to lie with statisics. This is unethical and one has to question who has paid Canalys analyst Jingwen Wang to deliberately mislead the industry. Who is Canalys analyst Jingwen Wang sleeping wtih to produce that shit? Shame on you Canalys for taking the real picture and reporting the opposite of what is the truth! Who taught you to tell facts? Dick Cheney?



Canalys! Apologize and correct that mistake and fire that corrupt analyst Jingwen Wang immediatley. This is a disgrace! You have no defense saying 'but it is true' when you know fully well it is not anywhere near the full truth and your misleading text will be misrepresenting the real picture - as essentially every reporter writing about your so-called research did over the past few days. Shame on your Canalys! Shame! You are a disgrace to the industry! Apologize and correct your mistake immediately! And fire that moron Jingwen Wang!



(Mythbusters takes a break and then returns with Part 2)



SO THE WINDOWS PHONE MYTH AND REALITY THEN.



That was the unethical Canalys. Now about that news that Windows Phone grew 90% from 2012 to 2013. That seems wonderful doesn't it. Actually it is another in the series of Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics. We now do a few simple pictures to explain what is happening. But before that, lets do a pop quiz. A guy went to Las Vegas to gamble on the Superbowl. He left with a million dollars. Did he win? Ah, good. You learned the lesson, grasshopper. Yes. The answer is 'it depends'. We cannot know by the million dollars is he a winner or loser. We need at least one other bit of info, typically, what amount of money did he come to Las Vegas with. If he arrived with 100,000 dollars, then yes, he won, big. But if he arrived to Vegas with 10 million and bet on the Broncos and lost 9 million and left with only 1, he is a big loser. So lets draw some pictures



First, lets take real growth.









That is real growth. Very nice. We all want that, right? Now what is this next picture?









That is not real growth. That is a recovery. Now what is this picture then?









Yes, that is only a partial recovery, not even full recovery. Now what is this picture?









Ah yes, that is not growth at all, not even any type of recovery. That is pure misery, play downward spiral of despair..



Ok, now lets look at the advanced course on how to lie with statistics, the Microsoft PR spin room way. Here I am not blaming Microsoft, I only remind you that anyone talking of growth rates who can't talk actual growth numbers is by definition the small guy in the room and should be ignored. But yeah, lets take the big news. We all read everywhere that Windows Phone grew 104% last year or Windows Phone grew 90% from last year or news like that. All over the press, wasn't it. And big hysteria about the great momentum that Windows Phone now has (adding to the nonsense from Canalys suggesting Windows Phone is now cathing up to iPhone and Anddroid). So this is the impression we get. Lets take 90% growth rate from 2012 to 2013. Almost doubling in size. And yes, I am not quarreling that this happened. It is the correct growth rate more-or-less. This is what we see in the news and almost any news reporat about Windows Phone in the past week has had this type of theme. Microsoft has now rosy future because Windows Phone is growiing this powerfully in just one year:









The abvoe picture may be freely used



So. That is real growth isn't it. The numbers are totally accurate. This is exactly like my first picture in the lesson isn't it. Pure growth. Wonder and bliss. This is the comfortably rosy picture that Microsoft PR propaganda spin room wants us all to believe is not just the truth, but also the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Except that it isn't.



If this picture was of the iPhone or iPad or Android or Lenovo's smartphone sales, that would be a fair picture. But for Windows-based smartphones it is not. Why not? Because Windows based smartphones are not new to the scene still in original organic growth stage. Again, lets now go to ge the court room standard for 'the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth'? This is the same picture but over a slightly longer period of time.











The above picture may be freely used



So I've just added two more years. Not going back to the start of time but giving us a bit more context. And you might well say, hey Tomi, that's even a better picture as Windows Phone is accelerating its growth. This is great news. To which I say - did you read the title fully. This picture ignores the industry itself.



In Microsoft's other businesses, the Window and Office on desktops and the Xbox gaming, the industries are mature and stagnant or only face slight growth per year. That is like most industries on the planet. The PC industry is actually already in decline. So in most industries the grwoth of you sales will correspond very closely to the growth in you market share. But not in mobile. Mobile is the fastest-growing industry of all time (haha did you notice I didn't say 'with the fastets growth rate'). Yes by real growth. The fastest ever. So in our industry ANY stats have to be indexed some way to the industry overall growth or they are pretty meaningless. Let me show you why. This is the above, exact same data based on Canalys numbers but now with the industry size factored in. Smartphone market and Windows Phone growing so dramatically:









The above picture may be freely used



So yes, Windows is the red slice on the bottom. You need a good magnifying glass even to see any change in what looks almsot like flatlining sales. The Windows Phone 'success' is microscopic in its significance when compared to the hypergrowth of the industry. That yellow part? Almost all of that is Android and iPhone. This is why I am constantly obsessing about real numbers and ... (my regular readers know what comes now..) Market Share! Lets redraw that same above picture not in absolute numbers but now in market share. Market share removes the growth in the picture and we can see actual competitive performance of in this case Windows smartphones versus all others in the industry.









The above picture may be freely shared



Ah yes. Your eyes are not deceiving you and the picture even with the poor quality is accurate. You notice that by market share, the 'ends' of the red line are actually higher than the middle. This is now more like the SECOND blue picture in the above. A RECOVERY picture not a 'growth' picture. Note that I have not changed any of Canalys's facts. Now, as the Windows Phone market share is so trivially tiny, lets enlarge that bottom portion so we only look at the red part and ignore the yellow part, so you see the pattern more clearly. Here is that magnified. We are still in the exact same data but now without the yellow part to show the scale to the industry. This is now still market share for Windows Phone past four years:









The above picture may be freely shared



(Hey, that is not a growth picture. Thats not even a recovery picture. That is only a PARTIAL RECOVERY) Now you start to understand my frustration with the lazy reporting that just mimicks what Microsoft propaganda department feeds them. That above picture is true. Not the rubbish about some magnificent 90% growth rate. Windows Phone after three years has not been able to recover yet EVEN TO THE MODEST LEVEL it had in 2010 !!!! THIS is the context of the news. The only reason Windows Phone now is able to report a sudden strong growth is because it STUMBLED SO BADLY BEFORE. This is that ice skater who fell on his ass and is trying to get up to speed AND HASN'T EVEN CAUGHT UP TO THE SPEED HE USED TO HAVE before he fell!!!



You get my point. This is how to lie with statistics. And I am not blaming Microsoft. They are the trivially tiny guy in mobile so of course they brag about their 'growth rate' but the truth is, After three years of using all of Nokia's resources to boost Windows Phone, the troubled operating system is still worse off today than it was the day before they annoucned the Nokia partnershp.

Compare these two pictures. This is how Microsoft wants us to think of Windows Phone:









The above picture may be freely used



But this is far more close to the truth:









The above picture may be freely shared

You can see that the second picture is far less appealing to Microsoft and not the good news they would want. Remember Windows is not new to smartphones MIcrosoft has been doing this for more than a decade. We can't suggest they started from zero a few years ago when they actually have had multiple releases and have been migrating customers over many times. This above picture is far more close to reality than the rosy scenario of only looking at the last year.



So why are you Tomi saying 'more close to reality' - what are you hiding from the picture. Oh nothing. That is accurate on the strict definition of Windows based smartphones. But that is still not meeting the court room standard of Truth, Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth. We have to show how that slight growth was achieved in the past two years. It was not built by Microsoft. Remember that gambler in Las Vegas.? The above suggests that the gambler arrived with 1.2 million and left with 1 million, right? That is not what happened. This is what actually happened. The gambler had his friend's 10 million dollars more:











The above picture may be freely shared

Yes. The Nokia smartphones juggernaut was sacrificed so that Windows Phone could pretend it has some market share. This is like your friend talking about how successful he was gambling in Las Vegas when he returns with 1 million dollars in his pocket - AFTER HE GAMBLED AWAY THE 10 MILLION of your money! Nokia was destroyed so Microsoft could show an illusion of some growth. Let me now combine these two as they became partners at the start of 2011 so from the end of 2010 to today. The Microsoft-Nokia partnershp 'success' in smartphones to achieve Windows Phone 'third ecosystem' looks like this:











The above picture may be freely shared



Yes you are right. That is now the last of the blue theory graphs. There is NO GROWTH HERE. The illusion of growth was only achieved by sacrificing the massive Nokia pile of customers and then conveninently forgetting to mention that it is the magic by which Windows Phone appears momentarily to grow a bit (it is already back to decline now that Nokia was sold to Microsoft, as you can also read in that Canalys paragraph).



So this is the delusional fantasy that Microsoft would like to serve us and have us believe:









The above image may be freely used



That is an opportunistic and misleading representation of only part of the truth. This is the whole truth:









The above picture may be freely shared



You can see why we needed the Mythbusters today. The journalists and analysts who write about Microsoft growing so strongly but not bothering to do even the most rudimentary research and spot that it is not a growth scenario, even without understanding the Nokia part, it is at best a partial recovery. They should be telling their readers that or else they didn't do their homework and are actually serving to promote Microsoft's propaganda and not telling the full story as their readers deseve to know. As to those specialists who write about the mobile indsutry, they should be telling this last picture story whenever they mention any growth by Windows Phone - that it is not genuine growth. It is growth stolen from Nokia. It is growth that was acheived by a massacre of the biggest installed base of loyal customers this young smartphone industry had ever seen. It is an illusion of growth. That is the true story. The Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth.



Now lets bring back the full industry picture for context and relevance. This is Windows Phone on the bottom in red including Nokia Lumia, then Nokia smartphones (Symbian and MeeGo- above it in blue and the rest of the industry essentially only Android and iPhone on the top:







The above picture may be freely shared



Now you can see why I am so certain Microsoft can never win this race. If they were able to burn all that Nokia smartphone good will of that thick blue slice - and end up with LESS than when they started - and it is now ALL GONE. That is literally true. When the Nokia partnershp was announced, the just-ended year Windows smertphoen market share was 4.3%. We just now saw from Canalys that year 2013 Windows smartphones had 3.2% market share. In the interim the 'partnership' wiped out Nokia's total Symbian and MeeGo customer base and have NEGATIVE gain out of it. Windows smartphones have seen market share loss of 1.1 points!



If MIcrosoft can't grow even one market share point by destroying Nokia's 35% in three years, what on earth are you smoking if you think they could now do better alone. Nokia was the handset maker with the best carrier relations in the world (except in the USA) and Microsoft is the major player most hated by the operators. If Nokia and Microsoft played good-cop, bad-cop against the carrier community the last 3 years and now you remove the good cop Nokia. What in heaven can you possibly inhale to delude yourself that now the red slice in the above will turn to magical growth?



This industry is complex enough without the misleading and the confusion. Lets all try to tell the real story not spew nonsense and add to the bewilderment. But wherever there is injustice to numbers. Wherever statistics are threatened. Wherever the figures don't add up, you will find you trusty Stats Police! For Truth, Justice and the Numerical way! Keeping the mobile world safe from the evil Swedish commnist plot of digit tyranny! Our motto is Numbers Are Our Buddies!



(hey, I'm from Finland so nothing can be more sinister than anything from Sweden. Heja Sverige! Den Glider In. .. well, except maybe Fernando Alonso)



Here endeth the lesson and we close with the mythbusters theme.. PS Canalys! Shame on you. Fire that moron. Apologize for the ridiculously and unethically misleading headline and paragraph in your press release - and obviously redact it and issue a correction.





Everything in this blog is free to share without any further permissions required. You can use all text and pictures at will... No numerals were injured in the making of this posting.