Significance of Percentage and Percentile

Percentage is per 100 count. For example, you planted 100 trees, but 10 of the trees did not grow well. To represent this scenario, we may also express 90% of the trees flourished well. But this was countable small numbers, but what if the numbers represent the population of a country, a state or even world. Percentage makes things visually representative and easier to understand, according to needs.

• Percentage is used to compare various quantities of an object. For example, Number of students present in Class 5th in a school is 30 % greater than the number of students present in Class 6th.
• Percentage can also be used to compare quantities of two different objects.
• We can also calculate ratio and proportion using Percentage.

Percentile, on the other hand is the comparison from others present in the group. For example, you scored 4th rank in your math test in your class which consists of 40 people. In this case, you scored less than 3 students (First, second and third rank students) but more than 36 students in your class, in this example, your score would be around 90 percentiles approximately. Percentile is important measurement tool in statistics which describes,

• Comparision with remaining dataset, to evaluate performance among peers. This helps to identify outliers.
• Risk Assessment in finance and investment to evaluate and calculate the returns, percentiles play a major role in identifying those data which are performing exceptionally well.

Percentage and Percentile are similar concepts but have some differences between them. Percentage is used to express the mathematical calculation in terms of per 100, whereas percentile is used to express the relative value with respect to other data present.

In other words, Percentage is a ratio between a part and whole per 100 while Percentile is a representation of data in comparison with other data present in the dataset. Both Percentage and Percentile are related concepts but very different from each other, as they are used to represent data in two completely different ways.

In this article, we will understand both Percentage and Percentile in detail, understanding their difference in the expression of data.