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GenesisST

macrumors 68000
Jan 23, 2006
1,802
1,055
Where I live
The whole android vs ios battle just annoys me. Yes, iPhone was the first, yes it has a ******** of patents, yes android copied some things and yes, iOS copied some (less) things (notifications anyone). Let the courts decide and love your own choice of device.

Why do both android and ios enthusiasts (not use the f-word) feel the need to bash the other side to the point of wanting to obliterated them? (I have Android-using colleagues and I read these forums).

There's a market for both. period. I myself prefer iPhone, but don't care if my neighbour or my wife prefers Android. It's a phone, not a statement on your person.

rant over, nothing to see here.
 

Rodimus Prime

macrumors G4
Oct 9, 2006
10,136
4
Not surpised that Apple takes so much. They only play in the high end market and are able to keep there phone prices artificially inflated. They do this by ince a year only release so they do not have to drop the price.
So whats a 5 way split of 1%....

Still more money than most of us will ever see in our life time.
 

shaunp

Cancelled
Nov 5, 2010
1,811
1,395
Hopefully Apple can bury the competition and end the smartphone wars. There is only room for one!

How is that going to help innovation? There would be nothing else in the market for Apple to compare themselves with. It wouldn't work.
 

Flood123

macrumors 6502a
Mar 28, 2009
624
62
Living Stateside
The whole android vs ios battle just annoys me. Yes, iPhone was the first, yes it has a ******** of patents, yes android copied some things and yes, iOS copied some (less) things (notifications anyone). Let the courts decide and love your own choice of device.

Why do both android and ios enthusiasts (not use the f-word) feel the need to bash the other side to the point of wanting to obliterated them? (I have Android-using colleagues and I read these forums).

There's a market for both. period. I myself prefer iPhone, but don't care if my neighbour or my wife prefers Android. It's a phone, not a statement on your person.

rant over, nothing to see here.

Agreed.
 

Mattie Num Nums

macrumors 68030
Mar 5, 2009
2,834
0
USA
True, but you need to have a product that people are willing to buy at 30-45% margins.

... and people wonder why we are in economic distress. It wasn't the housing market its because Americans buy things they can't pay for in the long run.
 

dethmaShine

macrumors 68000
Apr 13, 2010
1,697
0
Into the lungs of Hell
When you have a 30%-45% margin profits are easy to make.

When you have a great product, great manufacturing/pipelining expertise, great self-built ecosystem leading to absolutely low outsource engineering costs, profits margins are easy to come.

On another note, you're statement is statistically wrong. If you're selling only 10 times with a profit margin of 35-40%, your profits would be neglible or it would be more of a loss, with respect to engineering & manufacturing costs. Given Apple sells millions of these things, given the products are just amazing, Apple makes good profits.

But, I smell burn!
 

Ries

macrumors 68020
Apr 21, 2007
2,315
2,828
Its profits, that means after investments in new technologies and research. Those things apple package into nice devices aren't inventing themselves. Some companies aim long sighted, rather than banking now.
 

QCassidy352

macrumors G5
Mar 20, 2003
12,028
6,036
Bay Area
That would be good for no one. Apple needs to be pushed even harder i think so we as consumers can benifit. Otherwise we would be waiting for the 3gssss

I don't agree with that. I think apple pushes itself. If they have a good innovation, they don't wait for the competition to catch up. And if they don't, they don't implement something half assed just because someone else has it (look at blu-ray and USB 3 on the Mac side).
 

camnchar

macrumors 6502
Jan 26, 2006
434
415
Let's recall to stupid people who don't know how to read chart that this is not the "Market Share" chart, only profit.
If this is directed at me, you totally misread my comment -- which is ironic, considering.
 

ChazUK

macrumors 603
Feb 3, 2008
5,393
25
Essex (UK)
Back in 2007 (at the start of the chart), I never would have thought Nokia would have suffered the way it has.

What a demise. :eek:
 

The Mercurian

macrumors 68020
Mar 17, 2012
2,153
2,440
Google makes more money from ios than android. For how many android phones are sold its not a big money spinner at all in its current form

Agreed. But android isn't supposed to be a money spinner, much as google search website is free. But its gets you into the Google sphere and they make money on your data. Totally different model to Apple.

The whole android vs ios battle just annoys me. Yes, iPhone was the first, yes it has a ******** of patents, yes android copied some things and yes, iOS copied some (less) things (notifications anyone). Let the courts decide and love your own choice of device.

Why do both android and ios enthusiasts (not use the f-word) feel the need to bash the other side to the point of wanting to obliterated them? (I have Android-using colleagues and I read these forums).

There's a market for both. period. I myself prefer iPhone, but don't care if my neighbour or my wife prefers Android. It's a phone, not a statement on your person.

rant over, nothing to see here.

Agreed totally.
 

haruhiko

macrumors 604
Sep 29, 2009
6,529
5,875
Being a "copycat" of Apple is not really an easy task :-D just one succeeded /s
(please open your sarcasm detector :-D)
 

kristo

macrumors newbie
Dec 12, 2003
26
0
Amsterdam
I wouldn't be so happy about the massive amount of profit apple makes unless you are a shareholder. Unless you like giving so much of your money to apple.
 

kdarling

macrumors P6
Motorola is under water - that's a loss :/

MMI is up and down. The economy is hitting a lot of phone makers hard, because the profit margin on non-smartphones is terrible right now. Apple only makes smartphones, so they avoid that pitfall.

The good news is that MMI still has 3 billion saved up in the bank. So even if they kept losing a 100 million dollar on 2+ billion in sales like this past quarter, they could survive on their cash reserve for at least two dozen more quarters before running out of time and money. That's what, six years?

What this does prove, is that Apple have a cheaper manufacturing process and/or can command a higher premium.

Considering that others would have cheaper (or non-existent) royalty fees, and often make more phones, I actually don't think Apple has much of a manufacturing cost advantage. I think it's that Apple can command a higher premium right now. The question is, for how long?

As that report commented:

"(The carriers) willingly hand over these premiums because the iPhone ensures a competitive advantage or preserves their customer base from churning. The calculations that go into a decision to range the iPhone are compelling enough that 250 operators made the decision (though, crucially, there are still 250 who have not)."

Some carriers have recently backed off from offering an iPhone subsidy because of the expense, and a few analysts predict that trend will grow. The effect that has is that buyers in many parts of the world (especially with today's economy) look towards smartphones with a non-contract price under $300.
 
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rjohnstone

macrumors 68040
Dec 28, 2007
3,896
4,493
PHX, AZ.
Back in 2007 (at the start of the chart), I never would have thought Nokia would have suffered the way it has.

What a demise. :eek:
Imagine what it will look like 5 years from now.
Consumers are fickle... no one can hold the top spot forever.
 

Ted13

macrumors 6502a
Dec 29, 2003
669
353
NYC
Well perhaps they do. But I doubt its a profit share - more likely a licence.

In any case - free money for google. The manufacturers are taking all the risk here and getting hammered as you can see in the graphs. Google don't make any loss from this.
Google is losing massive amounts of money on Android. They haven't come anywhere close to earning from Android the $12.5 Billion spent on Motorola (which they bought to prevent the Android ecosystem from collapsing, as Motorola was threatening to start suing all the other Android manufacturers).

Never mind the cost of buying Android itself and all the R&D and marketing costs associated with it since, not to mention defending the Oracle/Java case.

Android has been and continues to be a cash sinkhole for Google.
 

TMay

macrumors 68000
Dec 24, 2001
1,520
1
Carson City, NV
Android/Google are not a manufacturer. Therefore these graphs are irrelevant to them since these graphs show profit/loss from the manufacture and sale of phones. Effectively Google/Android bypass the risk of loss here by having the suckers you see on the graph make the phone for them. What this does prove, is that Apple have a cheaper manufacturing process and/or can command a higher premium.



Again - not relevant to current discussion. Android earns google cash through other means - i.e. advertising.

Android isn't making Google very much (see the documents in the Oracle/Google patent trial) and iOS bring about 2/3 of the mobile profits for Google.

Google would have been better off not buying Moto (which they actually haven't yet) and not having burned bridges with Apple.
 

kdarling

macrumors P6
Google is losing massive amounts of money on Android. They haven't come anywhere close to earning from Android the $12.5 Billion spent on Motorola (which they bought to prevent the Android ecosystem from collapsing, as Motorola was threatening to start suing all the other Android manufacturers).

It's really $9.5 billion, since it includes getting $3 billion in MMI cash.

If they got it just for MMI's 24,000 patents, that's about $400K per patent. Some of those patents are getting FRAND payments to the tune of 2.25% of phones made around the world.

Note that Apple paid $2.6 billion towards the deal for 6,000 Nortel patents, or about $430K per patent.

The difference is, Google also got a settop box and phone manufacturer to play with, along with the patents. They could either dump or sell those parts, keep the patents, and come out looking good.
 
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