TechLila’s statistics pages gather figures about the software, platforms and companies our readers rely on, from Apple’s services revenue and macOS market share to Raycast’s growth and the race between Apple Music and Spotify. People quote these numbers in their own work, so every figure has to lead back to where it came from. This page sets out the process behind those pages.
Where the numbers come from
We start with the organization that produced a number, not with an article that repeated it. In practice that means:
- company filings, annual reports and investor relations pages for revenue, users and subscribers;.
- a company’s own announcements and help pages for figures it publishes about its product;.
- original measurement services, named in the sentence, for market share and usage data;.
- research papers and official surveys for figures a third party measured.
We do not use statistics aggregators, summaries of paid market-research reports, or other publishers’ statistics pages as sources. When a figure exists only in a secondary report, we name that report in the sentence or leave the figure out.
How each figure is written
Every figure carries four things: the number, its unit, the period it covers and its source, named in the sentence or in the source line under the table. We keep the precision the source used. A company’s statement about itself is reported as that company’s claim, and a forecast is labeled as a forecast and credited to whoever made it. When we work out a figure ourselves, such as a growth rate between two reported years, we use only numbers shown on the page, so a reader can redo the arithmetic.
When sources disagree
When two sources report different numbers for the same thing, we prefer the one closest to the data: a government or court record over a company statement, and a company’s own filing over an outside estimate. Figures measured in different ways appear side by side with their methods, never blended into one range.
Checks before publishing
Statistics pages go through the same evidence-first checks as every TechLila article, described in our Fact-Check Policy. Each source passage is saved with its web address and the date we read it, software matches every number on the page against its passage, and derived figures are recalculated. Every table carries a source line, and the full list of sources sits at the end of the article.
Keeping the numbers current
A statistics page is only as good as its newest figure. We rebuild each one on a schedule, and sooner when a source we rely on publishes new data, such as a new annual report. The year in a page’s title changes only when its figures have been brought up to date for that year. Where no newer figure exists, the older one stays, with its period stated, so you can judge how fresh it is.
Using our figures
You are welcome to cite TechLila’s statistics. Please link to the page, and where you can, cite the original source we name beside the figure too.