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I always find these numbers interesting because when I look at friends/coworkers/people I interact with, it seems 95+% of them have iPhones now.
 
I just feel badly for Windows Phone and Blackberry.

With the robustness of security and enterprise features in BB10, I personally feel you're going to see Blackberry retake a significant portion of the corporate business market. It's consumer presence will be lackluster until it can release a version of the OS with greater polish than it currently has.
 
I was referring to the period in the late Sixties when the Beatles were quite consciously competing with the Beach Boys. Think "Sgt Pepper" vs. "Pet Sounds" -- not "White Album" vs. "Kokomo".

Not to hijack the topic here, but it's arguable that Pet Sounds is better than any single Beatles album. I tend to disagree, as Revolver is the best Beatles album, but I digress.

Apple isn't interested in domination so much as it is interested in making money.
 
As a consumer, I couldn't care less about how much profit Apple makes. Marketshare ensures that developers will continue to produce for the platform you're on (iOS).

Huh. I figured developers tend to target the platform where they make more money.

Market share is only important in context. Apple currently enjoys all the benefits of being in first place even though it is in second place. When that changes, I will be concerned as a consumer.
 
Apple doesn't play at the very low end.
Taking all devices is not accurate.
All devices include prepaid where iOS is for the most part missing.
There will always be more Android devices shipped.
Android is on all types of phones; flip, small screen, large screen, tablet phones...

The comparison should only be candy bar phones in 3.5-5" screen sizes, etc.
People buying a flip phone running Android, just aren't in the market for an iPhone.

They should be looking at phones that directly compete.
Analysts are morons. "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics."
 
Good comment. I feel the same way to a point, I haven't brought myself to switch to another phone but I am a bit bored and I realize that's a bit crazy as we are just talking about a phone, but with two-year contracts (ATT) and the phones not changing much on the in-between years, i.e. S versions, it does get a bit stale, especially considering how much we use our phones every day.

I didn't switch yet because of 1Password not being available for Android. But soon I will just switch to LastPass and that's it! That Moto X sure looks sweet! As soon as will be available in Europe I'll buy one! I wanted a bigger screen, I wanted NFC, and Apple didn't want to give me any of these! They just said that they know better than me what I need! Well, I have to disagree with them. I know better what I need! I'm sorry my iPhone 4, you were great, but now it's time for me to move on!
 
As a consumer, I couldn't care less about how much profit Apple makes. Marketshare ensures that developers will continue to produce for the platform you're on (iOS). The more marketshare they lose, the more likely things will come out sooner or exclusively on other platforms. If your platform/device can't do the latest and the greatest, that also affects mindshare.

A quick look above and below your post will show the developer profit on iOS is about 3 fold as on Android. That combined with the simplicity to develop for, is going to keep iOS as primary developed for OS for quite some time.

I want the iPhone to remain the best phone out there. Apple has the knowhow to do this. It seems like their business model is holding them back. Their marketshare continues to drop, but they're making money — that's apparently more important to them than marketshare. We'll see what iOS 7 does to help this, but I agree with others that it doesn't seem like that much of a game-changer.
Marketshare has NOTHING to do with being able to make the best phone. The best ways to do that? High profit is number one. And honestly a LOWER production run. Cutting edge technology is really difficult to get 100M into production. It'd be much easier to only get say 20M into production.


One way to increase marketshare (especially with a brand as established as the iPhone) is to lower prices. Apple already has an obscene amount of money just sitting there. If they care about marketshare, they will lower prices of their iDevices, or at least offer entry-level ones at lower prices. They're no longer the only serious contender in town, and most people will buy other products if they're comparable but cheaper.
Yes, that's what they could do if they cared about marketshare. But they don't. ANY companies number 1 goal is profit, profit, and profit. Yeah, we as consumers want cheap stuff. But so what.

Yes, they will go from getting a ridiculous amount of profit to just a very high profit margin. But having enough money is not even close to a problem Apple has right now. I think that marketshare, by making sure they match or surpass features of the competitors and/or making prices lower, will accomplish want consumers want. Hopefully someone at Apple will remember that money isn't the only thing that's important to success.
You still haven't convinced me that marketshare is more important than profit. YOU may want more people to have iPhones to make yourself feel better about your purchase.

That being said, I understand marketshare is needed to an extent. If Apple goes down to 5% marketshare that could start to have a negative impact. And I think that's why the iPhone 5C will mitigate that possibility. But I don't think Apple needs to release a $200 phone. That would hurt them far more than help them.
 
The problem Apple have is they are greedy. They charge massively over the odds for things. Take the imac for example. They charge twice the price for a ssd hard drive. They charge more like 3-4 times the price for memory upgrades. They are sitting on billions of pounds. Something tells me the profit margins are waaaaaay too high and this is why people are abandoning ship. Im leaving apple today actually , yes everything works nicely together but its not perfect and with the mac pro or high end imac the only option for me , i can build a PC for less than half with a better spec.

Greed!!!
 
Strange isn't it how history repeats and Apple does not learn.

Apple computers could be on almost everyone's desk and Apple computers could run the work, in the same way PC's do now if Apple did what Microsoft did.

But no, they know better, and perhaps we are going to see a repeat performance with mobile phones.

Android on a vast sea of handsets by all the very top manufacturers in the world, even from the people who design and make the bits that go into iPhones, and yet Apple won't let go of iOS.

I'd love to see 10 or 20 years from now.

Why does Apple need it's computers to be on everyone's desk when they basically reinvented the computer space and now hardly anyone uses a computer on a desk and uses MacBookAirs, iPads and IPhones. They've sold hundreds of millions of each while increasing their desktop share to boot.

Your logic is really bad.
 
I'm someone, like many apparently, who has dropped iOS for Android and hasn't looked back.

That's not what is happening. This chart shows first time buyers (presumably most of which are coming from China/India) are choosing Android.

You are talking about retention and the stats show that iPhone still has higher retention than Android. In other words, on their next purchase iPhone users tend to buy another iPhone more than Android users tend to buy another Android.
 
1) The fact taht company stop reporting their sales have nothing to do with these shipped metrics. These are still accurate. Plus Apple reports these same Ship-through metrics when they report their sales. I'm not sure how they handle it with Apple store... but they report shipped to BB/AT&T/etc as a "sale" even though it's only actually "shipped". So it's still a mostly apples to apples comparison

2) Well, I can't speak knowledgably on this. You may be right, but I thought I would have heard about this if it were the case.

No it doesnt. Unlike Apple, the majority of those other competitors handsets are returned to sender after they fail to sell.

Profit is the only true reliable metric. The HP Touchpad proved that the shipped metric was so badly faulted. HP shipped 1 million touchpads. 25K were sold. 975k+ were slated for return before the fire sale.

I mean why do you think NONE and I mean NONE of these handset vendors and tablet vendors are reporting SALES. Don't give me the whole.."oh they sell to 3rd party vendors like Verizon, ATT, Best Buy, etc and can't track them" bs....Apple does the same thing.

It's because their sales are HORRIBLE. If they were decent or even great, they'd be shouting it from high heaven.

It's just like Amazon refusing to break out their sales for Kindles.

Those that hide their #s are hiding them for a reason.
 
It would be nice if IDC split the report into market segments. If there were a high-end, mid-range and low-end chart all of this "Apple is doomed, I am going to start developing for Android" nonsense will end.

It is rather clear that Apple is holding its own in the high-end, gaining in the mid-range, and non-existant in the fast growing low-end. Why people consider that four $50 phones sold to people in China are somehow more meaningful than selling one $650 iPhone 5 is beyond me.
 
Who really gives a **** about 'world wide' marketshare?
This includes **** hole 2nd and 3rd world countries which would add next to nothing to Apple's bottom line.

The only metric that makes any difference is profitshare and Apple is still king - by a wide margin.

121212_smartphone_profit_share1.png


Sure there are untapped markets (China) where Apple would like to gain a foothold and they are addressing that issue with this new iPhone 5C (or whatever). Statistics like that cited in the article include people in **** hold countries (or continents) like Africa and South America who's markets have a very small value proposition.

Then again, Apple could just chase marketshare with low margin products and put their entire business model in jeopardy.
 
Way crazier numbers than I thought. Profits are great, but low user numbers will severely hurt Apple. Most of the huge apps (Facebook, Instagram, banking apps, foursquare, etc) are all free. They will all go Android first. Also monetizing is catching up on the Android side. I just can't see a way for Apple to turn this around.
 
The problem Apple have is they are greedy. They charge massively over the odds for things. Take the imac for example. They charge twice the price for a ssd hard drive. They charge more like 3-4 times the price for memory upgrades. They are sitting on billions of pounds. Something tells me the profit margins are waaaaaay too high and this is why people are abandoning ship. Im leaving apple today actually , yes everything works nicely together but its not perfect and with the mac pro or high end imac the only option for me , i can build a PC for less than half with a better spec.

Greed!!!

Go for it. You won't be missed no does anyone believe you. And have fun with that PC.
 
and now hardly anyone uses a computer on a desk and uses MacBookAirs, iPads and IPhones.

Your logic is really bad.

This is such an amazing statement :D

Sorry I did not think these forums were populated with being that existed on other plants, as I can assure you computers on desks still rule and run the world.
 
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.

Yeah yeah (no Beatle joke ;-) ) we know that story about competition by now. Every thread someone has to mention it as if it's news.
 
Way crazier numbers than I thought. Profits are great, but low user numbers will severely hurt Apple. Most of the huge apps (Facebook, Instagram, banking apps, foursquare, etc) are all free. They will all go Android first. Also monetizing is catching up on the Android side. I just can't see a way for Apple to turn this around.

That's because you are blind as a bat from your logic and coming to that conclusion from a 'shipped' metric.
 
Huh. I figured developers tend to target the platform where they make more money.

Market share is only important in context. Apple currently enjoys all the benefits of being in first place even though it is in second place. When that changes, I will be concerned as a consumer.

Huh. How do you explain why more and more developers are heading towards Android even though they currently make more money on iOS? Because Android has a huge and growing marketshare. As their marketshare is growing, the amount of money developers can make is also growing.

Apple's marketshare is dropping. What part of this looks promising for me as a consumer who uses iOS? A platform with hardware that is more expensive and a dwindling marketshare. It is not difficult to see a point where it will become common for there to be an Android version of an app and not an iOS one (where today there opposite is often the case). I want healthy competition, not just huge profits. I don't want Apple with iOS & iPhone to go back to the days like when you felt lucky if something on the PC was also available for the Mac even if the Mac was the superior experience.
 
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It would be nice if IDC split the report into market segments. If there were a high-end, mid-range and low-end chart all of this "Apple is doomed, I am going to start developing for Android" nonsense will end.

It is rather clear that Apple is holding its own in the high-end, gaining in the mid-range, and non-existant in the fast growing low-end. Why people consider that four $50 phones sold to people in China are somehow more meaningful than selling one $650 iPhone 5 is beyond me.

Is this just in America or World Wide?
 
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