Samsung and Apple Continue to Dominate Smartphone Market, But iOS Market Share Falls

I note the large number of vitriolic responses in the MacRumors board these days from apparent iPhone customers. The general tone is along the lines of "Apple better hit it out of the park with their next phones or I am gone forever." Not because people hate their phones, but because they feel that Apple has to be leaps and bounds ahead of the competition on EVERY feature and spec.

These people are just looking for an excuse to buy a Samsung phone as if THAT's going to give them something that beats the iPhone on EVERY feature and spec. It's as if they want to buy a Samsung phone not because it's better overall, but because they want to prove some kind of point.

These Apple customers have gone from blind Apple fandom to blind Apple uber-skeptic. I look forward to these people getting themselves locked into a contract with a Samsung phone, then reporting back about their flawless experiences.

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Amazing Iceman said:

There are a lot of Android phones and Tablet being sold for pennies, practically giveaways. And there are lots of people who that's all they can afford.
Maybe this is the reason why.
Remember: quantity doesn't make up for quality.

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If I had teenage kids, I'd get them the cheapest phone I could find. I wouldn't feel so bad when they lose it or break it.

That we see so many kids with iPhones is amazing, and those sales are gravy.

bobenhaus said:

Apple is not like Ferrari and shouldnt be comparing them at all. Pumping up the price on a device that could be sold at a 3rd or 1/2 the price is not comparible to Ferrari.

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While I agree that the Ferrari analogy is dumb, if Apple (or any other manufacturer) sold the iPhone at a 1/3 of its price, they'll go out of business faster than you can say "businesses can't sell at cost."

Amazing Iceman said:

There are a lot of Android phones and Tablet being sold for pennies, practically giveaways. And there are lots of people who that's all they can afford.
Maybe this is the reason why.
Remember: quantity doesn't make up for quality.

Click to expand...

iPhone 4 is free on contract in various places.

So maybe that is not the reason?

Option for Pinch Out to minimize, Home button to close an app
Picture-in-picture multitasking
App-switching with previews
Configurable Lockscreen info
Live icons
Settings on a side pullout a la notifications top pull down.
Ditch springboard-splitting effect for an OS X-like folder effect
Ability to remove any unwanted stock apps, incl newsstand
Skeuomorphic GUI skins a switchable option
Everything should be accessible within two fingertaps
Open USB bus for apps that need it, ie display sharing, VNC etc
Cloud backup storage space should equal device storage space
iOS without Dropbox is worthless. Get on it, iCloud

"Expert mode" reveals more options in settings, and enables a Tweaks section available in the AppStore for approved tweaks from jailbreakland.

It's not hard to think of ways of iOS catching back up. Just have to want to do it.

Apple's in no trouble, obviously.

Samsung's eating a great deal of the uninformed-and-new-to-smartphones market: Samsung pays more in commissions to salespeople than Apple and Coke combined spend on advertising. Apple doesn't pay commissions to salespeople to push iPhones (and no need: they sell as many as they can name).

That's not a sticky effect, though: people who over time try both platforms are very likely to stick with iOS--it's simply the better, more hassle-free experience. (I mean of course real people, the majority, not the micro-niche of techies who want a phone to be like a PC--in ways both good and bad.)

Put another way, a lot of everyday non-techie people have Samsung phones as their first smartphone because some salesperson told them something untrue or misunderstood or simply handed it to them and said "this is best." Whereas most people have iPhones by actual choice! They went to Apple.com or an Apple store, or someone trusted (not a sales rep) recommended an iPhone for real reasons, or they went to their carrier store and asked for an iPhone even while the sales staff pushed something else.

I agree, Apple need a swift kick in the rear!

This sounds bad but I hope their market-share drops lower...

With such growth, it's actually sounding like it might be worth while to develop for Android...

iOS has gotten stale...

yes please drop even further to get their lazy ass up from the "throne"

iOS is lossing market share because iOS 6 is boring.

iOS is stale. Update it and your market share will improve.

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Oh my. How quickly they turn.

As somebody who hates change , I really like good old dull and boring iOS. Now, if Apple brings out a $149 no-contract cheap-assed plastic crappy phone I'm all over it. Better yet... put a USB port on the iPad, tear down that walled garden and I might even consider it.

Well, this is it.

Apple is clearly dying.

I mean, they lost about 3% of the smartphone market. They're only providing 1 out of every 5 smartphones out there.

How can they sustain themselves?

THE HORROR!!!

syd430 said:

This is the end of Apple.

I'm calling it now - Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 6 months.

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I love Apple and their products and always will but I do wish they had a bigger iPhone.

Also it gets on my nerves how people with iPhones say Android is cheap, umm no, there are some cheap Android devices but many are as expensive if not more expensive than the iPhone. Apple still has the iPhone 4 and 4S on the market for cheap so I guess the iPhone is cheap as well. Ive been an APple guy for years and I know they will doing what they do and that is make phones that is easy to use and that is reliable.

Yeah us geeks like customization and widgets but not all do, plus widgets kill battery life. Yeah Android is moving faster ahead but they still cant get the battery issues worked out and what good is all these features if you can not use your phone, disable all the so called awesome features, or see your screen cause you have to dim your screen so low that you cant see it cause the battery life is poor.

Nexus 4 is an awesome phone but like all other Nexus phones, the battery life is a complete joke.

nagromme said:

That's not a sticky effect, though: people who over time try both platforms are very likely to stick with iOS--it's simply the better, more hassle-free experience. (I mean of course real people, the majority, not the micro-niche of techies who want a phone to be like a PC--in ways both good and bad.)

Put another way, a lot of everyday non-techie people have Samsung phones as their first smartphone because some salesperson told them something untrue or misunderstood or simply handed it to them and said "this is best." Whereas most people have iPhones by actual choice! They went to Apple.com or an Apple store, or someone trusted (not a sales rep) recommended an iPhone for real reasons, or they went to their carrier store and asked for an iPhone even while the sales staff pushed something else.

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Source?

nagromme said:

That's not a sticky effect, though: people who over time try both platforms are very likely to stick with iOS--it's simply the better, more hassle-free experience. (I mean of course real people, the majority, not the micro-niche of techies who want a phone to be like a PC--in ways both good and bad.)

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See I disagree. In my field, I've seen a few Apple people move from iOS to Android, and these are diehard Apple fanboys (that wish for the death of MS and Adobe on a daily basis). People of every sort are choosing Android over iOS at this point, not just the uninformed. Now, I also agree with your first statement, Apple isn't in trouble. As someone else said, I see this as being the same thing that happened in the PC market. Some people will choose Apple, some will choose Samsung, some will choose others... And the OS carried by the majority of phones will win the day, like Windows did back in the day, like Android is now.

Plus, I think it's far too early to be predicting the death of any company... Even RIM, but that's just a personal opinion, but especially big dogs like Apple, Samsung, etc....

Apple hasn't really brought anything industry changing to iOS for a long time. Honestly Android OS is in my opinion still ahead in terms of multi-tasking and feature set, well at least features that matter..

As great as some of the iOS6 features are, not sure If everyone puts most of them to use. I think above all we need better multi-tasking, so far only BlackBerry 10 seems to deliver in that area. Again even Android OS has better multi-tasking capabilities.

Since Samsung no longer reports sales numbers, I would like to know where they got their information?!?!? Are they just pulling estimates out of thin air, and then reporting it as fact?

gagaliya said:

No it's not, ferrari will not goto a corner and die if its market share drops to 0.1%. The whole basis for smartphone including iphone is their ecosystem, which is 100% dependent on market share.

When you start losing users, companies scale back making apps for the ecosystem, then users see the competitor has more apps and jump ship, rinse & repeat. It's a vicious cycle that once started, will be very difficult to stop. Just look at how much trouble microsoft/nokia has trying to break in, even though phone7 core os isnt bad at all.

iOS is obviously nowhere close to this yet, but it's ludicrous to say iOS/iphone are not impacted by market share. Market share is EVERYTHING to a smartphone/mobile ecosystem. Every single app maker that makes up your os is looking at this report and using it to figure out where to release their next app first.

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I disagree. Even with Apples current market share, just from renenue alone its iTune store makes more money then most phone manufactures. People tend to spend more money on the iOS ecosystem then Android.

Anyone who has a "brand appreciation" for Samsung needs to have their heads examined... There is nothing about Samsung's "brand" that can be appreciated other than they are good at copying what others invent.

aristobrat said:

If Tim Cook is being truthful when he's repeatedly said that they don't care about marketshare, then Apple's marketshare dropping won't influence their innovation.

He says they care about making good products. If that means they lose marketshare because they don't have anything on the market with bigger screens, because they haven't found a way to do it that they like, then they lose marketshare.

Personally, I don't think they're losing any sleep over it. Even if they lose 50% more marketshare, their company still turns enough profit for them to do what they say they like to do, which is design good products.

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This is an excellent point. Apple won't nor can't stay Apple by turning their focus to market shares like a traditional company. Apple's design philosophy is to make as perfect, streamlined and as easy to use products as possible. Products that anyone from child to a senior citizen is able to use. Going by the way of Android or Nokia would be the way of going against that zen inspired philosophy of pure design that Jobs always pushed for. Sure Apple needs to keep on innovating but not innovating just for the sake sales like the competition does.

gnasher729 said:

If people switched from a $100 feature phone to a $100 Android phone, how does that matter to Apple? How does it matter for example to software developers, if you have huge number of Androids owned by people who are using their phone for phone calls and nothing else, and who never in a million years will be buying a single app?

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Because they perhaps will buy apps in the future? Why are you so sure that they won't buy anything in his life?

And a $100 smartphone sold by company X is a loss sale for all the companies that are not X

AZREOSpecialist said:

Anyone who has a "brand appreciation" for Samsung needs to have their heads examined... There is nothing about Samsung's "brand" that can be appreciated other than they are good at copying what others invent.

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Predictable. Who pulled your chain?

TheHateMachine said:

iPhone 4 is free on contract in various places.

So maybe that is not the reason?

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iPhone may be free, but AT&T is what scares people away.

TheHateMachine said:

nagromme said:

Apple's in no trouble, obviously.

Samsung's eating a great deal of the uninformed-and-new-to-smartphones market: Samsung pays more in commissions to salespeople than Apple and Coke combined spend on advertising. Apple doesn't pay commissions to salespeople to push iPhones (and no need: they sell as many as they can name).

That's not a sticky effect, though: people who over time try both platforms are very likely to stick with iOS--it's simply the better, more hassle-free experience. (I mean of course real people, the majority, not the micro-niche of techies who want a phone to be like a PC--in ways both good and bad.)

Put another way, a lot of everyday non-techie people have Samsung phones as their first smartphone because some salesperson told them something untrue or misunderstood or simply handed it to them and said "this is best." Whereas most people have iPhones by actual choice! They went to Apple.com or an Apple store, or someone trusted (not a sales rep) recommended an iPhone for real reasons, or they went to their carrier store and asked for an iPhone even while the sales staff pushed something else.

Click to expand...

Source?

Click to expand...

nagromme

slffl said:

The market share is falling not because people are switching from iOS to Android, or choosing Android over iOS for their first phone, it's because people are upgrading their feature phones, walking into their service providers store, and getting what they think is the most bang for the buck which equals a LARGE phone for cheap (they don't care about what OS is on it, or if their money is going to America or Korea).

Then they take it home and all they do is talk and text on it.

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Market share is falling because people in China are buying more Android phones than iPhones because Andriod phones are cheaper in China. China is were Apple getting the *** kick in marker share. I believe Android has around 80% market share over their.

nagromme said:

Put another way, a lot of everyday non-techie people have Samsung phones as their first smartphone because some salesperson told them something untrue or misunderstood or simply handed it to them and said "this is best." Whereas most people have iPhones by actual choice! They went to Apple.com or an Apple store, or someone trusted (not a sales rep) recommended an iPhone for real reasons, or they went to their carrier store and asked for an iPhone even while the sales staff pushed something else.

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Yes, someone recommending a Samsung phone is someone lying, someone recommending an iPhone is a trusted person.

I can't believe that people can say those things with a straight face

Hope Apple don't get caught up with this market share bollocks. I know Tim Cook has fudged it and rightly so.

You're not going to compete with free stuff so just ignore it.

Amazing Iceman said:

iPhone may be free, but AT&T is what scares people away.

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Yes, free iPhones are only sold on AT&T

So much for the "choice" argument from the Android Brigade: they're all buying Samsungs.



Time to rename the platform Samdroid?