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No, the difference is Apple make a great profit. The majority of the "smartphone" with Android are barely able to run the OS because it needs crazy fast hardware to run smooth. They are also cheaply built and are effectively throwaways...
I wonder if that's part of it. Maybe for every iPhone apple sells that lasts 3-4 years, a couple of Android phones that last only a year or two are sold.
 
As an iOS developer, I'm wondering at what point I should abandon ship and switch to Android development. There still seems to be plenty of cash in iOS dev at the moment but how long will that last with a decreasing market share?

Is the number of iPhones growing?

Are people who spend $100 on a cheap Android phone likely to buy your app?
 
The problem is that the market grew by 50% YOY and Apple only grabbed 6.5% of those new customers.

The numbers may look grim but then, you need to look at other factors such as what are the margins of these phones? How big is the aftermarket for these devices? Also, when the 5S and 5C come out, love to see the numbers by 1Q14. I'm really looking forward to the 5C as Apple has really never addressed the lower end of the market. When consumers whom don't want to drop bank for a smartphone and only pay for a contract, we'll see how many drop their Androids for an iPhone.
 
the iPhone is way too expensive

a 32gb 4G Retina iPad is $629!!
with Larger Screen, Battery, More Memory, and CELLULAR antennae!!

srsly why are do they charge $650 for an iPhone ?!?

iOS is just going to fracture the iOS market,
all the Grandma's are going to freakout when they update it.
 
not surprised

I don't see this changing, especially if the next phone is a 5s with the same size screen. It doesnt matter what features it has the mainstream media is just going to report how the screen has not gotten bigger. It was kind of a dumb move by Apple at this time.

I for one really like Ios over Android but I am getting tired of waiting for a new screen like the S4.
 
Don't worry guys; Iphone 5s and 5c will turn things around.

Tim Cook 2013

Don't worry guys; iphone 6 and 6c will turn things around.

Tim Cook 2014

Don't worry guys; iphone 7 will turn things around.

New Apple CEO


Apple has nothing to "turn around". Apple's iPhone is continuing to enjoy increased sales and increased profit. Let's have a look at a mobile phone profitshare. It would likely still be around 70% with samsung having the other 30% and everybody else just treading water.

Marketshare is certainly a valuable metric, but hardly the most important metric... Profit is the goal. Apple could easily win marketshare, but at the cost of their profits
 
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It's kind of weird... the majority of people I see at work have an Android while the majority of strangers I see outside of work have an iPhone.

I live in the city and work just outside the city while most of the people I work with live way outside the city. I feel like all the country bumpkins are slowly getting on the smartphone bandwagon with an Android while the majority of affluent city folk are tried and true iPhone users.

I have the same observation
 
I know that they're practically shipping low-end Androids in happy meals these days, so the big Google numbers are expected, but where are these Windows phone numbers coming from? I've still barely seen a handful of them.

Perhaps the real significance is that this graph shows shipments, not sales. Unfortunately, since Apple is the only platform owner to release actual sales, we can only speculate on the real marketshare.
 
Hopefully the introduction of the iPhone 5C will cause a significant change in those statistics. Apple foresaw this and they're doing something about it.
 
Competition is healthy for everyone. Not only the consumer: also the producers. It keeps everyone on top of their game. And it serves as many different types of consumers as possible.

Remember The Beach Boys vs The Beatles in the late sixties? Not to compare Android to either of those bands (!), but the competition spurred both to greater and greater heights of innovation -- and brought immeasurable happiness for those who bought their records.

Umm, did you seriously just compare the Beach Boys to the Beatles? The Stones, maybe, but not the Beach Boys.
 
This is what happens when you really only release a "new" phone every 2 years. The S upgrades are just upgrades they are not really a new phone to most people.

This looks like what msft did to apple a while back.


Speaking of msft I like the comeback! maybe by next year they will have 10% share.
 
Since it's my business phone/ mini-computer it's not supposed to entertain me, just supposed to work and do what I need it to do without fuss. It's amusing to hear people get "bored with it". Boring is good. It works. :cool: I see too many people being "entertained" by their android, but hey it's fun holding a dinner plate sized device up to their ear.
 
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Oh. My maths isn't that good. I think the way he put it say it all. Getting a paltry 6.5% of new customers coming to the smartphone market is shockingly bad.

Why? These "new" customers are replacing a cheap feature phone with a cheap Android phone. Probably because they can't a cheap feature phone anymore. These people were not going to buy an iPhone. They didn't buy one of the expensive Samsung phones either; they bought a cheap one.

All these gains in the smart-phone "market" that others make are accompanied by losses in the non-smart phone market. So the number of phone sales didn't grow for these companies, and the revenue didn't grow either. Just the label "smart" vs. "not smart".


Since it's my business phone/ mini-computer it's not supposed to entertain me, just supposed to work and do what I need it to do without fuss. It's amusing to hear people get "bored with it". Boring is good. It works. :cool: I see too many people being "entertained" by their android, but hey it's fun holding a dinner plate sized device up to their ear.

Just had to highlight the important bit.

And I actually had a colleague do a Crocodile Dundee impression on me - "This is not a phone. This is a phone. " (Shaking a _huge_ Samsung phone at me which might actually work better than an iPhone if you need a weapon for self defence).
 
As an iOS developer, I'm wondering at what point I should abandon ship and switch to Android development. There still seems to be plenty of cash in iOS dev at the moment but how long will that last with a decreasing market share?

For you to ask this question, I am very doubtful that you are a developer, or at least not a skilled one.
 
Apple's iPhone is continuing to enjoy increased profit.
Did you forget the last quarterly report already? Apple has continued to post declining profits, caused more importantly, by declining profit margins. Thats not 'increased profit' at all.

The specifics for this has largely been believed due to the iPhone 5 failing to woo customers over buying a cheaper iPhone 4(S). In addition, high-storage units aren't selling nearly as well as they used to - and thats where the really big margins were.
 
Oh. My maths isn't that good. I think the way he put it say it all. Getting a paltry 6.5% of new customers coming to the smartphone market is shockingly bad.

Yes that is low. However, that's why you hear all the talk about a saturated high-end smartphone market. That is what Apple sells to. The people who can afford smartphones can already have them; that is stabilizing. Where androids growth is coming from is the people who couldn't afford a smartphone before. Now there are all these $100-$200 smartphones (versus the $650 iPhone 5) and people are buying them up.

The problem with that market though is a) you don't make any hardware profit and b) you don't get any backend profit either. The people buying cheap-o phones are much less likely to pay for apps, music, movies, etc. They are simply the new feature phones.
 
Of course, When you can buy an Android phone for $85 and the iPhone costs $600, it is easy to see why more people buy the Adroid.

Yes $85. My son just bought a pre-paid plan with an Adroid phone. He bought the phone outright, no contract, from Amazon.com for $85

If Apple wants market share they will have to get the prices down. But maybe they don't want market share and living with 10% is OK.

Same applies to Apple Macs. They are high-end computers and of course the cheap $400 notebooks outsell Macs. I think that is Apple's plan not to compete at the low end
 
Apple keeps putting their head in the sand. The numbers show it IS happening, no matter how special you think apple is.

I think Tim Cook already addressed this at his recent D apprearance. "I don't have my head in the sand Walt, I certainly look at this. But we've never been about making the most."

What these reports consider as smartphones, many of us would probably consider more of feature phones. Which is exactly why iOS has the usage share numbers that it has. It really doesn't matter much how much market share either player has if the customers aren't actually using any of the "smart" features. Apple still dominates usage charts, satisfaction ratings, and they have the healthiest smartphone business in the industry raking in the overwhelming majority of profits. Which allows them to invest in product development, and the cycle goes on.
 
The problem is that the market grew by 50% YOY and Apple only grabbed 6.5% of those new customers.

Yea and carriers are dying to get customers onto 2 year data contracts. So they are throwing free android phones at them.

iPhone 5C will help. It should have just came a year ago.
 
Hmmm.... IDC making up numbers again using market indicators to guesstimate Android sales.

I've said before, and I will say it again.... These are estimates and if things were really this good for the big Android players they would be shouting it from the rooftops during their quarterly earnings calls.

39 Analysts took a stab at estimating Apple's iPhone sales this last quarter based on market indicators. These analysts have been able to vet the accuracy of those market indicators against Apple's actual unit sales EVERY QUARTER for the last 5 years. And yet, the consensus of 39 analysts was off by 20% (guessed too low) on what Apple sold in iPhone units.

By the same notion: IDC is a single analyst, not a consensus of multiple analysts. None of the Android players have reported quarterly unit sales in YEARS. Therefore, there has been zero ability to vet the ability of market indicators against the actual sales numbers of Android phones for these manufacturers for YEARS. And yet, IDC believes they can make accurate predictions of Android unit sales.

The only thing we can be sure of IDC's numbers is that the sum of all the market share percentages adding up to 100% is correct.
 
Umm, did you seriously just compare the Beach Boys to the Beatles? The Stones, maybe, but not the Beach Boys.

If someone prefers Stones to Beatles, that's opinion. If someone prefers Beach Boys, that's delusion.
 
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