Apple's War on Android

[fjtorres]

Apple's 18% market share only accounts for 80% of the profits in smartphones:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-574...ol;editorPicks
(Samsung holds 15% so that doesn't leave much for anybody else.)

Yes, Android is just *killing* apple...

Their business model seem to be working fine, so far.
(shrug)

So, no; you *don't* need massive market share to dominate an industry, just as having huge market share doesn't by itself make you dominant.

[kartu]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Apple's 18% market share only accounts for 80% of the profits in smartphones

Yes, Apple owns its customers THAT hard.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Samsung holds 15%

Samsung holds 24%.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Android is just *killing* apple...

iOS dominance on smartphones is history. We'll see the same happen on tablets.
This has nothing to do with killing. Apple will still have it's niche customers and will continue to own them good and hard in the forseable future.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

...you *don't* need massive market share to dominate an industry...

You do. But you don't need massive market share to rip off your customers.

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Confucius was an economist?

No, just one of the greatest philosophoers of old times.
I didn't know one needs an economist to judge what's good for society.

[ScotiaBurrell]

Originally Posted by kartu

iOS dominance on smartphones is history.

Not when they have top model selling in US for many months: http://www.bgr.com/2012/04/02/iphone...g-gains-share/

Market growing faster than apple sales. but apple sales still growing. not history, not now.

maybe later. apple pc business not even history yet! still growing too.

i think developers still target ios first and others later too.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by kartu

iOS dominance on smartphones is history. We'll see the same happen on tablets.

In terms of majority market share? Yes, I agree.
Apple have shown no inclination to play at the low-margin end of the business, so it is open for other companies to eat into.
That is what we are seeing with tablets now, Apple is losing market share to cheap 7" tablets, not comparable 10" tablets. How many Galaxy Tab 10s has Samsung ever sold? How many Xooms did Motorola sell?

For all the evil designs people project onto Apple, have you thought how dominant they could be if they really wanted to? If they really wanted to fight for market share over everything else, they could knock at least a third off iPad prices and still at least break even. Could anyone compete if they did that?

[ScotiaBurrell]

Somethign else. http://www.forbes.com/sites/briancau...e-survey-says/

Apple now represents 29% of smartphone users and Android represents 40% of smartphone users, according to BernsteinResearch. Apple’s iOS software, however, is stickier than Android: 95% of iOS users plan to stick to with Apple. By contrast, 75% of Android users plan to stick with Google’s software. Most of these potential Android defectors plan to switch to iOS.

Over the long term, the firm sees Apple commanding 35% of the smartphone market, Samsung grabbing 20%, and HTC grabbing 10%.

[kartu]

Originally Posted by ScotiaBurrell

Not when they have top model selling in US...

Yes, also in that case. It has more to do with having only 1 phone model than anything else. Oh, and it's US, where Apple's share is 1.5 times as in the rest of the world.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

How many Galaxy Tab 10s has Samsung ever sold? How many Xooms did Motorola sell?

I didn't know the reason to by Xoom and lack of expansion slot has hurt Samsung sales quite a bit.
Not that they released numbers anyway. We just know that Samsung has hoped for more.

And there is more to it. People that buy shiny stuff, would go for iStuff. Many of those that don't are waiting for price to drop a couple of hundred of bucks (nVidia promising "very very cheap, soon" fuels this expectation)

Originally Posted by murraypaul

For all the evil designs people project onto Apple, have you thought how dominant they could be if they really wanted to?

So they don't want to be dominant, seriously?

Originally Posted by murraypaul

they could knock at least a third off iPad prices and still at least break even. Could anyone compete if they did that?

You mean iPads are built on some special parts of Foxconn that is superior to where other manufacturers' stuff is done, or they somehow have cheaper than usual workers building for Apple? Or Samsung would sell screens (the most expensive part of the device) to its own for a higher price, than it sells it to Apple?

I don't think price is where it is due to manufacturing costs. It looks like more of a "oh, we don't want our device to be dubbed cheap" thing.

Originally Posted by ScotiaBurrell

Somethign else.

When direct numbers draw pitiful picture, Apple uses more FUD. I recall they magically trippled market share over this Xmas and got share larger than Android somehow.
Oh well, good for them and their followers.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by kartu

Samsung holds 24%.

That is *unit* shipments--market share.
Which just makes my point:
Apple has 18% market share but gets 80% of the industry's profits--Samsung has 24% market share and makes only 15%. And the rest of the smartphone vendors fight over 5%.

Given that companies are in business to make money, not for bragging rights, the bottom line and the proper metric for success is total *profits*.

*How* you make the money is secondary to the fact that you *are* making money. The rest is for cheerleaers.

[ignacio ferrer]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Given that companies are in business to make money, not for bragging rights, the bottom line and the proper metric for success is total *profits*.

Well,some people actually think companies are there to create jobs ...

The problem with Apple seems to be that they are very dependent on creating new and innovative stuff to stay ahead of the pack - and it might proof ever more difficult to do just that.
So the situation may change rather fast.

[ScotiaBurrell]

Originally Posted by kartu

It has more to do with having only 1 phone model than anything else.

oh. why not do this others then if it is a winning stratagy?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by kartu

And there is more to it. People that buy shiny stuff, would go for iStuff. Many of those that don't are waiting for price to drop a couple of hundred of bucks (nVidia promising "very very cheap, soon" fuels this expectation)

There is always something better around the corner.
From Apple, and from everybody else.

So they don't want to be dominant, seriously?

If by 'dominant' you mean achieve market share at the expense of profitability, no.
If by making the most money, yes, and they are doing that.
Back to the phone figures, 18% share, 80% of profits. I think they are pretty happy with that.
The other companies who have 82% of the market and only 20% of the profit probably aren't...

[heySkippy]

Originally Posted by kartu

Yes, also in that case. It has more to do with having only 1 phone model than anything else.

2 phone models.

[murraypaul]

If this is 'losing', I think Apple will live with it:

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2012/04/i...-sales-numbers

According to AllThingsD, the iPhone 4S is believed to be the top seller on all three carriers for the month of March. And for Sprint and AT&T, the iPhone is really out in front of its Android competition:

“Our March checks indicated the iPhone continues to extend its market share gains,” Canaccord Genuity analyst Mike Walkley writes in a note to clients today. “In fact, we believe iPhones are outselling all other smartphones combined at Sprint and AT&T and selling at roughly equal volume to all Android smartphones at Verizon.”

http://appadvice.com/appnn/2012/04/s...ir-new-tablets

In a March 22-28 survey of 200 new iPad owners, 82 percent were “very satisfied” with their purchase with an additional 16 percent being “somewhat satisfied.” This compared to just 2 percent that were “somewhat unsatisfied” with Apple’s latest tablet. Astonishingly, no one surveyed was “very unsatisfied” with the iPad.

[Penforhire]

Ha ha, I'm hearing some real Nostradamus stuff here. Like Apple's grip on high-end tablets is at an end? Quit smoking that hallucinogen. At the high end there is currently an iPad market, not a tablet market. You think some new hardware, like the next Transformer Prime, is going to turn the tide? Dream on.

Price some tablets at $300 and below and you can own a serious piece of that market, as demonstrated by B&N and Amazon. But if you price a new non-iPad tablet at $600+ you better prepare for weak sales.

You can call it 'only' marketing if you like but the general public is buying iPads. I see it all around me. But if you think everyone is brainwashed then you don't understand just how well iOS and iPads actually work out-of-the-box.

You may continue to be astonished that iPhones sell so strongly and how public perception of Android fragmentation and a weaker app store is enough for a bunch of people to avoid it. Google could/should step up and set more unified guidelines for hardware and OS updates. Not sure if they will.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

Ha ha, I'm hearing some real Nostradamus stuff here. Like Apple's grip on high-end tablets is at an end? Quit smoking that hallucinogen. At the high end there is currently an iPad market, not a tablet market. You think some new hardware, like the next Transformer Prime, is going to turn the tide? Dream on.

This guy seems to think so:

[afv011]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Apple has 18% market share but gets 80% of the industry's profits

It always baffles me when people justify rip-off prices, like some sort of badge of honor. But to each their own.