According to the latest Market Monitor Report from Counterpoint Research, the Latin American (LATAM) mobile device market had a very healthy 25% YoY and 4% sequential growth. Samsung, LG and Apple are the top 3 smartphone vendors in the region.

Of course the Korean Press had to find something positive to say about Samsung's smartphones lately, being that they still can't seem to beat Apple's iPhone 6. They thought that they found that good news in Counterpoint Research's latest report. Finally there was some good news out there about Samsung's smartphones. But was there?

The Korean tech site noted that "Samsung Electronics has ruled the roost in the Latin American smartphone market for 15 consecutive quarters since the third quarter of 2011." That was good, but there was trouble in paradise. Counterpoint's report actually noted that Samsung Electronics crashed to its lowest level in Q4 2014 just as iPhone 6 mania was sweeping the globe.

But here's the kicker, the report noted that "… Samsung share slipped by 900 basis points to 29.5% YoY, but recovering from its lowest market share of 22% during Q4 2014. This was possible as Samsung slashed prices across quite a few models and the shipment mix shifted toward lower ASP. As a result, Samsung's smartphone ASP decline by 31% YoY."

Even with drastic cuts, Samsung couldn't get back to their Q1 2014 status. So what was there to really celebrate about? Nothing really.

The real statistic that could have made this interesting is how well the Samsung S6 did when compared to the iPhone 6. However, we didn't get that. Instead, we got a chart, as noted above, that shows us that while Samsung was in decline in Latin America, Apple was experiencing gigantic growth going from 5.4% to 10.1% market share.

Samsung's philosophy is engrained in the Korean press to promote Samsung's greatest propaganda tool, the "shipment volume" statistic. It's all that they care about with profit being a distant concern.

Then again, when you have top business professors from MIT and Harvard teaching this business philosophy and strategy as practically being the law of the business jungle, how could you possibly blame them?

On that note, Apple's CEO recently stated the following: "There's this thing in technology, almost a disease, where the definition of success is making the most. How many clicks did you get, how many active users do you have, how many units did you sell? Everybody in technology seems to want big numbers. Steve never got carried away with that. He focused on making the best."

In the end, the best news coming out of Counterpoint Research's report had nothing to do with Samsung. On the contrary, the best news was certainly about Apple's amazing performance in that market by almost doubling their smartphone sales from a year ago. You could check it out for yourself here. 

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