Apple's Share of Worldwide Smartphone Market Slides as Samsung Continues to Surge

Time to wake up

Apple, time to come out with a truly novel iPhone version, and not a stretched version of the iPhone 4(s). Competition is good and I hope Apple feels the heat. Get us something innovative. The last truly innovative stuff was the iPad. iPhone 4(s) was incremental, iPhone 4 , OK, sort of innovative with the Retina display - but that was what, two years ago?

i like my iPhone but saying Samsung is in lead just because its selling "crap" phones doesnt make any sense. not everyone needs a $650 phone. the price is not all u know ...

and the iPhone 4S isnt even that expensive, u can get it for 1 euro here

glad to see that apple finally has competition in the phone business again, time to get their their lazy ass up and start innovating again, and no im not talking about adding more random "wallet" apps or siri commands no one needs (what movie is xy ... seriously?)

Macboy Pro said:

Not a surprise, the iPhone looks antiquated compared to some of the newer droids like the HTC one X and the Samsung Galaxy SIII. If the iPhone 5 Rumors are true, its not going to be pretty as the iPhone will continue to sleep


Wake up Apple!

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Apple needs just a few BIG things to overrun Samsung.

1. Sign up China Mobile (biggest mobile carrier in China).
2. Make two or three different size screens (4 and 4.5 inch)...Honestly that's one of the BIGGEST reason people move to other phones...
3. More prepaid market...

just do these three things (that's a lot)....they will recapture many of the customers that moved to Samsung or HTC.

iMikeT said:

Average consumers love cheap products and analysts are stupid.

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And fanboy comments are predictable.

marcusj0015 said:

I'm starting to worry that Faildroid may win, Apple NEEDS free iPhones and they need prepaid iPhones, they need them everywhere if they want to win, and honestly, without the iPhone, Idk what's in Apple's future.

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There are free and prepaid iPhones

spiderman0616 said:

I really don't know why we have to keep harping on this. They beat their guidance once again. They grew in every area except the iPod. They're selling crazy amounts of iPads. And all this is aside from the fact that they're up from this time last year but had the same exact kind of slowdown. This was an expected slowdown that everyone knew would happen and until Apple breaks their "every fall" release cycle for the iPhone, it's going to keep happening.

The headlines all make it look like Apple missed earnings. Really what happened is that they missed Wall Street's unrealistic expectations.

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Agreed. Apple is bringing in more net profit in two hours ($8M) than Amazon makes in a quarter ($7M). Their business is firing on all cylinders. Wall Street analysts got tired of being wrong over the years and have progressively increased their estimates. But they have been conservative for not wanting to be "too wrong". Apple's share of the smartphone market is staggering with their single model of phone. Their share of the tablet market sales (not shipments) is even more impressive and growing on a steeper curve than iPhone ever did in its first couple years. The reason for this is that Apple is the only company that understands software, hardware, and ecosystem really well. Apple's net profits this last quarter were nearly twice that of Samsung's and keep in mind that Samsung makes a lot of their money on components, heavy machinery, appliances and all sorts of stuff ($8.8B for Apple versus $4.6B for Samsung). Samsung is far more diversified than Apple and yet Apple's profits are far greater. If you compared just their mobile business (which Samsung refuses to divulge figures on), Apple's lead would be even more impressive.

Does anybody really think that if Samsung was doing this well that they would be withholding the information in their quarterly reports? Samsung has had their sights set on Apple for quite a while according to recent court documents and as is obvious by their business strategy. If Samsung could gloat about beating Apple at something they would. When they stopped reporting their smartphone sales it was in order to hide something they did not want to talk about. I believe these reported numbers about as much as I believed Balmer and HP when they said the HP Slate with Windows 7 was the future of tablet computing. Samsung cannot fudge the numbers in their quarterly reports because its illegal and so they choose not to talk about them at all.

MacRumors said:

While Samsung has ceased releasing data on smartphone sales for competitive reasons...

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This is a load of BS. If Samsung is going to be a major force in the global (smart)phone market, the least they could do is release their sales numbers like the rest of their peers. (Unless Apple is the odd one out in releasing specific numbers of units sold, in which case, good for them.)

Also, here's a little something from Daring Fireball.

Keep in mind, as well, that the rumor mill and anticipation for the next iPhone is going crazy, as usual. Remember last year's "letdown" that was the iPhone 4S? Even without a new enclosure and a few internal hardware and software updates, millions bought and enjoyed them. Don't give up on just yet.

D.T. said:

Samsung moves a ton of phones through the retail channel as the cheap/free/don’t-care option for smart phone buyers.

My brother and sister-inlaws are a great example. Both have Samsung smart phones, neither could answer anything about what they do other than they take pictures and post on Facebook (both are confused about how you add media, download music, etc.)

Both phones were free, one is a Windows phone, the other is an Android phone (the latter was a replacement for a previous Windows phone).

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This.

I don't think the average consumer, really cares weather its an iPhone, Windows Phone, or Android Phone. As long as the price was right, and it does what they need it to.

Samsung has a history of bending the numbers around to seem bigger than Apple. Remember the whole 'Units shipped vs. Units sold' debate? How many of those Samsung smartphones are sitting on shelves?

https://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/2...f-all-postpaid-phone-sales-at-att-in-2q-2012/
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/07/19/apples-share-of-verizon-smartphone-sales-slips-to-45/

Granted, these two articles are from the US alone. And with the Verizon article, 45% is still huge. And with how many OTHER smartphone manufacturers produce Android phones on that network, there is a lot of room to estimate that Apple is still the biggest with them.

that1guyy said:

Here begins Apple's decline, and this time they don't have anyone to save them when they hit bottom.

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atthis point in time I would've down voted you. But I can't

Apple still has the lions share of the total smart phone profits. And that's all that matters.

WiiDSmoker said:

You're talking about the iPhone 4 that can be had for free or 49.99 right? Stop this crap.

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Yes, they are free... but only in the Unites States, and only on AT&T. Even in that case, there are only two or three models of the same phone, as opposed to dozens of different phones.

On top of that, it is obvious that the other 50 million phones that Samsung makes are, by definition, cheaper phones since they don't make as much profit as Apple.

Think twice.

Apple's strategy of introducing new product updates may be adequate for computers (maybe?) but it is definitely too slow for (smart)phones

Most smartphone today are shiny, pretty and more affordable than an iPhone and that's what 80% of the market is after these days so Apple needs to get their act together and make something that people HAVE to have because everyone makes pretty phones nowadays and most of the time they are cheaper...

BC2009 said:

Samsung is far more diversified than Apple and yet Apple's profits are far greater. If you compared just their mobile business (which Samsung refuses to divulge figures on), Apple's lead would be even more impressive.

Does anybody really think that if Samsung was doing this well that they would be withholding the information in their quarterly reports? Samsung has had their sights set on Apple for quite a while according to recent court documents and as is obvious by their business strategy. If Samsung could gloat about beating Apple at something they would. When they stopped reporting their smartphone sales it was in order to hide something they did not want to talk about. I believe these reported numbers about as much as I believed Balmer and HP when they said the HP Slate with Windows 7 was the future of tablet computing. Samsung cannot fudge the numbers in their quarterly reports because its illegal and so they choose not to talk about them at all.

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Are you saying that Samsung is lying in their Mobile division numbers?

HangmanSwingset said:

How many of those Samsung smartphones are sitting on shelves?

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When quarter after quarte the numbers grow, I highly doubt that they are a lot of phones in shelves.

marcusj0015 said:

Where?

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Free iPhone 4s - £31 per month.
http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mo...NE-4S-16GB/MONTHLY?intcmp=HP_APR_iphone_WEBEX

Free iPhone 4 - £25 per month.
http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/buy/APPLE-IPHONE4-8GB-OI254-WCON

Free iPhone 3GS - £20 per month.
http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/buy/APPLE-IPHONE3G-S-8GB-OI204-FCON

You're welcome!

EDIT - And Apple prepaid:
http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mo...c=phoneFinder&tariffNetworks=&clearance=false

http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mo...c=phoneFinder&tariffNetworks=&clearance=false

http://www.carphonewarehouse.com/mo...c=phoneFinder&tariffNetworks=&clearance=false

The Real Story

Next quarter will tell the real story. If sales don't surge with the release of iPhone 5 (Please don't waste my time or yours telling me it's really iPhone 6) then things won't be looking that good for Apple, unless they have some new, world changing product they're about to release. I guess we'll see.

iMikeT said:

Average consumers love cheap products and analysts are stupid.

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Must be nice to be above average

anyone know where these warehouses Samsung stores all their "shipped" phones in are located, they couldn't possibly actually be selling that many

/s

btcutter said:

Apple needs just a few BIG things to overrun Samsung.

1. Sign up China Mobile (biggest mobile carrier in China).
2. Make two or three different size screens (4 and 4.5 inch)...Honestly that's one of the BIGGEST reason people move to other phones...
3. More prepaid market...

just do these three things (that's a lot)....they will recapture many of the customers that moved to Samsung or HTC.

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This is pretty spot-on. Even though I like a phone that I can use one-handed, some people don't mind using two hands and some have bigger hands than others. For me, a 4-inch iPhone that has been reported would fit great for me in one-handed use, but some folks might want bigger and some folks might want smaller. They should not go hog-wild here with respect to screen sizes but having two options would allow them to capture a chunk of the market that they are not getting today. They just need to do it while handling the resolution differences properly (possibly decreasing pixel density on the larger model).

Even many folks who are buying for the first time look at the larger screen and think "bigger is better". These folks may actually prefer a smaller screen in day-to-day use if they tried it out because it is easier to handle the phone, but if they buy the Samsung based on "bigger is better" then Apple does not get a chance to sell them a phone again for 2 to 3 years depending on the length of their contract (some European contracts are longer term to reduce the price of the phone).

I think having two sizes would really accelerate sales of iPhone although it may adversely affect the really high customer satisfaction rating for those who buy based on "bigger is better" and then learn they can't manipulate the phone as easily as they would like.

again shipped <> sold.

anyone can ship billions of something. Just ask all those companies that shipped Android tablets.

or ask Logitech about shipping millions of Google TV.

PixelsAbuser said:

This is the reason why Apple sues Samsung so much. They know they can't handle that much competition with such fast development.
iOS looks like 2007... Oh wait...

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Pathetic.

just put out the iphone5....hopefully it is everything we expect from Apple.

Macboy Pro said:

The Galaxy SIII is WAY WAY WAY better hardware than the 4s. WAY better. The problem with the Galaxy is the OS. IOS is way better than droid. Its pretty much a hardware vs software battle in my opinion.

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Besides comparing a phone released last year to something recent, I know you're not talking about specs, news flash: the world no longer revolves around specs. The combination of iOS and the iPhone have been able to pull off a very smooth experience while running something like Infinity Blade II with that same consistency. Wait- you've seen the design on the SIII, right?