Lies, Damn Lies...

Want to see the gentle art of spin in action? Then have a look at the way sales figures of the iPhone, Droid and Nexus One are being portrayed on various pro-Android and pro-Apple sites.

The Droid has managed to outsell the original iPhone trumpets one side, the Nexus One has been a complete flop shouts the other.

Neither headline portrays the real story and for that you have to dig a bit deeper.

The original iPhone sold a million in 74 days and the Droid managed 50,000 more in the same period. Good,  but then the iPhone 3G hit the million mark in less than a week. It's all about the context. The iPhone was only available in the US for most of those 74 days, whilst the Droid was available in a few selected other countries too.  The 3G was available worldwide from day one.

The Nexus One figures hide the fact that its only available stateside, on a minor carrier and can only be bought online. In that context selling 135,000 units in 74 days looks pretty impressive,  especially as its competing in a pretty saturated Android market.

The real story here is that Android is grabbing market share hand over fist and with so many phones available there's sure to be one to fit every need. Google doesn't need an Android phone to sell in big numbers, just lots of phones doing reasonable sales.