Samsung will stop releasing phone sales data

KOREAN HARDWARE GIANT Samsung has decided to stop reporting its mobile phone sales figures despite, if you ask us, never having done much of a job of it in the first place.

The INQUIRER really started to take an interest in Samsung's mobile phone sales figures when we noticed that it appeared to have sold six million of its Galaxy S II handsets. This exciting bit of news, we soon learned, was down to some bad maths - perhaps on our part - but more likely down to the vague way that the firm reported sales and pre sales.

Whether the board in Korea is concerned about our reporting, we can't say, and nor can we say whether the decision to stay quiet about sales is down to all the legal hoohah with Apple, but whatever the case, a report at the Wall Street Journal claims that the company has decided not to say anything about sales any more. So, take that, technology press.

Samsung released its latest financial results last Friday, but did so without including any data on mobile phones, reports the WSJ. The newspaper adds that was discussed in a conference call that day and explained away as a "new information policy", which we think would have been better named a "new no information policy".

"As competition intensifies, there are increased risks that the information we provide may adversely affect our own businesses," Robert Yi, Samsung's chief of investor relations, said on the call before - we assume - he sat back in his chair and pantomimed zipping his lips.

In the UK, Samsung's PR team was quite happy to retweet suggestions that it sold a large number of handsets during the quarter, the second of its fiscal year, and has promised to explain more about when and where to us in an email.

This should help clear up our confusion as, while we initially thought that Samsung had sold six million of its Galaxy S II handsets, we then learned that in fact it had sold only three million, which was the number of pre-sales it had already reported.

So, while we thought that it had sold three million, then six million, and then three million again, the news that it had actually sold five million, which we heard last week, almost blew our minds.

Which leads us to thank Samsung for deciding not to report sales figures any more. We just do not have the time or energy to keep trying to work out what it is actually telling us. µ