Google's Android is Eating Apple's Lunch

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by holymadness

"Oscillating around 50%" is a cute way of saying declined by 16.6% over the same 12-week period last year. The real problem is your disingenuousness.

Picking just two points to compare is not how you read a graph. And do you actually have a reason to pick these two points to compare?

Originally Posted by holymadness

So what lunch is Android supposed to be eating if not profits?

Market share.

Originally Posted by holymadness

Clearly you've never owned or run a business, since you seem to think that the only cost of producing a good is the cost of its components and assembly. This distortion is trotted out with unerring reliability in these discussions and only demonstrates how much bad faith exists on the side of those who perpetuate it.

I didn't say that the only cost of producing a good is the cost of its components and assembly. But Apple does make money directly from the sale of iphones while Google does not.

Originally Posted by holymadness

The US is currently the most important smartphone market in the world. I'd say it more than contributes to the general fizzling out of the OP's thesis.

Actually the fact that the US market trends are not a measure of the global market show that the importance of the US market is exaggerated.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

<pedant>
Google do not charge for the base Android OS.
Google do charge for access to the Google Android apps, including Google Play, as well as requiring a contract which may restrict what other apps/features the manufacturer can include.
</pedant>

I wasn't including the profits made from the app stores of each company, because that would be even more difficult to compare.

Originally Posted by 5thWiggle

[Tongue-in-cheek][...]
[/Tongue-in-cheek]

Seriously, you can't compare the sale price of hardware + OS vs manufacturing cost to the fact that an OS is initially free but makes money on use. They don't equate.

Apple also makes money from their app store, but as I said, the companies have different mindsets when it comes to profit. My point was that global profit is not a way to measure market share.

[holymadness]

Heh, there is nothing here to reply to. Just more cries of "market share, market share!" We've seen how hollow that distinction is, no need to repeat myself. I guess I'll be back if you have something new to say, if ever.

[afv011]

Apple continued to win out in terms of tablet market share this past quarter, according to the latest figures from ABI Research, with a 55 percent share of all shipments during the period. That’s a lead it has had since 2010 when the iPad was introduced, but it’s also the slimmest lead it’s ever had, and represents a dip of 14 percent versus the previous quarter. At this rate, Android could overtake the iPad for tablet share sometime next year, something which seemed unlikely or even impossible in 2010 and 2011.
(...)
Apple still hasn’t dipped that low, but Android now has 44 percent of the market, owing in part to the utter failure of any other tablet-based mobile platform.

Source

[kennyc]

And there is of course the Windows Surface Tablet which is the newcomer and is likely to grab a share of it's own in the near future.

[Beryl]

Originally Posted by kennyc

And there is of course the Windows Surface Tablet which is the newcomer and is likely to grab a share of it's own in the near future.

We can hope. I have no plans to buy one though. I hope they do better than HP did.

[kennyc]

Nor do I, but it's certainly in the mix and being pushed by big bucks and embedded bases.

[murraypaul]

It will be interesting to see which potential customer base the Windows tablets draw more from, Apple or Android.

[kennyc]

Odds are there will be no way of knowing. Apple is on the way down, Android is growing, windows is growing. I expect all that to continue.

[SeaKing]

Apple continued to win out in terms of tablet market share this past quarter, according to the latest figures from ABI Research, with a 55 percent share of all shipments during the period. That’s a lead it has had since 2010 when the iPad was introduced, but it’s also the slimmest lead it’s ever had, and represents a dip of 14 percent versus the previous quarter. At this rate, Android could overtake the iPad for tablet share sometime next year, something which seemed unlikely or even impossible in 2010 and 2011.
(...)
Apple still hasn’t dipped that low, but Android now has 44 percent of the market, owing in part to the utter failure of any other tablet-based mobile platform.

Originally Posted by afv011

Source

Apple shot up like an arrow, but it is now reaching the uppermost height of it's trajectory and will soon come down.
At first there will just be a pause as Apple finds it can't go higher and then as the Apple devotees realize that they aren't buying the top product for all the money they are throwing at Apple, they will move off when their contracts expire, when they need another device, and they will find they pay less. It won't be real abrupt at the beginning, but with the device cycles we see, once it starts, in 2 years Apple will be at 25% or less and then they had better bring out another magical toy.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

It will be interesting to see which potential customer base the Windows tablets draw more from, Apple or Android.

I'm actually hoping that Windows will expand the customer base to people who didn't consider either Apple or Android.

[Penforhire]

Seaking, I don't think your timing is correct. IMO, they are not at apogee. Just last week I decided I wanted my first true tablet (not counting E-ink e-readers and various laptops). I'm a technical type, active over at Ars Technica, and I know all about Amazon's latest Fires and Google's Nexus 10.

I still chose the latest iPad. It isn't strictly about the hardware specification, not to me and not to the general public. Too many people don't get this. They say the Nexus has better hardware so the Apple must come in second. Wrong!

The ecosystem is what sells and what sold me. The number of tablet-optimized apps for iOS far exceeds Android apps. My head exploded reviewing the near-endless case variations for iPads (or any other accessory you care to choose). iTunes sells 99% of the media I care about. iCloud works well enough for my automated cloud needs (though I'm also a happy user of Skydrive and Sugarsync). iOS remains the most responsive to the user, despite Android getting a lot closer with 4.1. Google Now may be slightly more accurate than Siri but Siri is hooked into the device better (setting reminders for example).

Oh, and if the latest iPad's hardware is slacking, it isn't slacking by enough to matter. Battery life is insanely good (roughly 13 hours use on each of the first two charges, BT off but lots of Netflix over wifi) and overall display quality (color, resolution, viewing angle, brightness) is top shelf.

Have you taken a close look at the newest "retina" MacBook Pro? Too expensive for me but a totally awesome laptop. Sony's Vaio line competes but, guess what, at the same price or higher (and with more mixed reliability reports).

So, in sum, I'm arguing that Apple is not just about to topple. I don't doubt they will but not so soon as you think.

[holymadness]

No company lasts forever. However, Apple will not be unseated by its imitators, but by a radically new product category we haven't even imagined yet, which will do to smartphones and tablets what they did to cellphones and computers.

[5thWiggle]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

My point was that global profit is not a way to measure market share.

No one was debating that. What holymadness was suggesting was that global market share is only a portion of a company's measure of success.

If global market share were the only part of the "lunch" , it would be a poor lunch indeed - a salad bar with few choices perhaps. The Giant Android Megabot, after punching out the Nokia-Symbian Construct and filling a doggie bag for Google, is chowing down. Apple has filled its plate with about 16% (where its been "oscillating" since 2009) of the salad and retired to a table to eat. Windows Mobile has left the restaurant, and Windows Phone has just come in the door. Poor Rim is hiding beneath the counter, furtively snatching scraps of lettuce, muttering "Blackberry 10, Blackberry 10....". So how much nutrition is each part of the Giant Android Megabot getting? Remember, it's made up of at least 9 major players and lord knows how many minor players (I'm not counting Google itself, as up until it aquired Motorola, Google got its money from users not sales of handsets). Hopefully the "legs" are getting enough food to keep bot upright.

If (as holymadness asserts) that global market share is a mere portion of the buffet, a slightly different scenario emerges. Symbian is still out cold, Rim is still hiding and Giant Android Megabot is still ravaging the buffet. But Apple has walked off with all the roast beef, the seafood and most of the desserts...

Personally, I don't want anyone to "win". Competition means choice and I like choice.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

It will be interesting to see which potential customer base the Windows tablets draw more from, Apple or Android.

Maybe they'll draw from neither.
They are growing the market by focusing primarily on people who aren't attracted by either.
Neither tablets nor smartphones are mature enough markets that gains for one platform *must* be somebody else's loss.
There's still plenty of bystanders out there.
In fact, smartphones still only make up 39% of all mobile phone sales worldwide:
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=2237315

And tablets are an even less mature market.

There's room for everybody to grow without cannibalizing somebody else.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

....
I still chose the latest iPad. It isn't strictly about the hardware specification, not to me and not to the general public. Too many people don't get this. They say the Nexus has better hardware so the Apple must come in second. Wrong!

The ecosystem is what sells and what sold me. .....

with phones and tablets it is not about the hardware unless that hardware is significantly lacking. It's first about the ecosystem and secondarily about the best hardware. This is why I personally would never buy an iPad or iPhone.