Does the Microsoft Surface sell better than Apple's iPad?

That the iPad is not going through its best moment is obvious. The Apple tablet has aged quite badly for what any Apple product is accustomed to and the sales of the iPad in all its models are more than discreet compared to those of other times. Despite this, don't be fooled: the iPad still sells quite well, albeit in much lower numbers than it used to. However, Microsoft with its Surface seems to be gaining ground, and so we can see if we read the articles published in WinBeta, Forbes and other important blogs, who claim that Microsoft has managed to beat Apple in tablet sales. Everyone has been quick to say that the Surface already outsells the iPad, but let's take a look at the original article and what it actually says, leaving tabloid headlines aside.

The study on which these articles are based has been carried out by 1010Data, and in it we can see that during the month of October 2015 the Microsoft Surface has been more sold in online stores than the Apple iPad. We are talking about only during the month of October, and only if we take into account online stores in the United States, no physical stores or outside of that country. But not only are the details left here that leave the study a bit "taken with a grain of salt," but it also includes the sales of the Microsoft Surface and the Surface Book. If I already think that including the Surface in the same category as the iPad is somewhat unfair (the first is more a laptop than a tablet), if we already add the Surface Book things get even worse, since this is a pure laptop and hard and that little (or rather nothing) has to do with the iPad, not even with the iPad Pro. At such a point, Wouldn't it be fair to add the sales of the MacBooks to those of the iPads?Thus they would compete on equal terms.

Let's also look at the month in which everything happens: October. And let's also look at the graphs. While Microsoft's suffered a spectacular rise from 25% to 45% in a single month, Apple's decreased in the same month from 35% to 17%. It is no coincidence that at the beginning of October Microsoft presented its new Surface while Apple did not launch its iPad Pro until mid-November. As is often the case before a new product is launched, sales of those that are going to be "obsolete" slow down due to the imminent arrival of new ones.

But the best of all remains: the study is not based on units sold, but on sales revenue. Namely, study says Microsoft sells more tablets when it really should say it makes more money, especially considering that the Microsoft Surface has an average price of $844 and the iPad is $392. In fact, the original WinBeta article itself says in the footer of one of the images with the graphs (and I translate literally):

Microsoft may sell fewer tablets online than Apple, but Microsoft's median selling price is twice as high.

And it is that with the figures that we handle, Apple should sell twice as many units as Microsoft to match sales according to this study, that is, that Although Apple sells more tablets than Microsoft, as Microsoft's are twice as expensive, everything that is not to sell more than double that Microsoft assumes that in this study it is said that it sells more than Apple.

I leave the last graph of the study for the end. Taking into account the last twelve months (not only the month of October), these are the sales (I insist, in money, not in units) of each brand. Despite the fact that Microsoft puts its Surface and Surface Book in this bag, that the average price of these "tablets" is double that of Apple, Apple's sales continue to lead, almost double that of Microsoft. But these "minutiae" do not matter when publishing an article, because as they say, "the truth does not spoil a good headline."