Among non-English speakers, Samsung edges out Apple

• Apple followers more likely to live in English-speaking country than Samsung followers
• Researchers examined official Twitter accounts to collect, formulate and analyze data

AS the smartphone wars continue between Samsung and Apple, new research not only shows that Samsung is significantly outnumbering Apple in followers, but that language plays an important role when choosing between the two smartphones.
 
Smartphones have emerged as a primary means of social networking, while greatly enhancing connectivity. Among smartphone products on the market, Samsung’s Galaxy series and Apple’s iPhone have gained wide popularity and surpassed other products.
 
While there have been media reports that Samsung's Galaxy smartphone is globally outselling Apple's iPhone, new research by Dr Esam Alwagait, Dean of King Saud University’s (KSU) Deanship of e-Transactions and Communications; and Basit Shahzad, a Deanship researcher, provides key insights into the reason for Samsung's growth.
 
“According to our research, while Apple is more popular in English-speaking countries, Samsung predominates elsewhere, particularly in Asia and Africa,” says Dr Alwagait, who notes the research seems to suggest that Samsung's smartphone may be viewed as being more user-friendly for non-English speakers (click charts to enlarge).
 
To compare the popularity of the Samsung and Apple smartphones, the KSU researchers examined official accounts of Samsung and Apple on Twitter (@SamsungMobile and @AppStore) to collect, formulate and analyze data with multi-level and multi-purpose queries.

The results were classified by languages, cities, countries, and continents. Data was drawn from Twitter accounts using the study-specific code, and the number of records received totaled 2,629,616 followers for Samsung and 1,380,497 for AppStore.
 
The researchers focused on social networks as they have proliferated exponentially in recent years, and have become an integral part of people’s everyday communication, they said.
 
In addition, they are a great source for information sharing. Twitter (twitter.com) was selected for this study since it has more than 24 million unique visitors per month and 500 million tweets per day.
 
Some highlights of their findings include:

• Apple followers are more likely to live in an English-speaking country than Samsung followers;

• English is the primary language of choice for both sets of followers, though Samsung is more popular where English is not the primary language;

• Considering the continental review, Samsung is significantly more popular in Asia, Africa, North and South America and Europe, while Apple is more popular in Australia;

• While Samsung is overwhelmingly more popular in Asian and African countries, it has a relatively small lead over Apple in Europe; and

• Based on Klout scores – a measure of a user's influence across his or her social network -- Apple followers are more influential and more popular than Samsung followers. However, the sheer volume of Samsung followers suggests this could be a growing factor.

Related Stories:
 
Has Apple’s iPhone lost its mojo in SEA?
 
Samsung at CES: Diversification the key to growth
 
Competitive pressures forcing Apple to up its ante
 
Battle of the mobile tech giants
 
Smartphone vendors: Nokia out of the Top 5, RIM in

 
For more technology news and the latest updates, follow @dnewsasia on Twitter or Like us on Facebook.