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Apple and Huawei Will Benefit Most From Note 7's Failure, but Profit May Have Already 'Peaked Out'
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I disagree with Kuo. Reality is the Note 7 was the king of phablets and there is no replacement for it other than another Note 5 or 8 since it has very unique features such as the pen. Its demise is a much needed break for Apple since it means fewer defectors. The fact that iPhone 7 shipments are delayed doesn't reflect that it's selling well but rather due to higher warranty replacements for hardware and software issues such as yellow display, hissing, camera that doesn't focus, springboard crashes, etc. Huawei used to make the Nexus 6P but this year it's a non-player having been displaced by HTC for making the new Google Pixel. If anything Huawei and Google Pixel are more pressure for Apple at the lower tiers than Samsung that's unrivaled at the top tier.
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Except that a lot of users here and on android central have switched from the galaxy note 7 to the iPhone 7 plus.
And how high would you guess the rate of iPhone users now not switching to the Note 7 is? This can be split into two numbers: (a) what percentage of Note 7 buyers would have come from an iPhone and (b) what percentage of that is now sticking with the iPhone (compared to switching to another Android phone)?
I don't know what's going on yet, but my teen daughter shocked me last night by asking, "Dad can I please get a Samsung?"
Wait. What??? She's a teen girl. She's ALWAYS had an iPhone. Heck, I thought all her friends were stuck on using iMessage.
And she's the same kid who, after recently being offered a new iPhone 7, had me get her a used iPhone 5S instead, "because it's small and still has the headphone jack."
Now she wants a Samsung with the all-front display, as she puts it. Appears she means the Edge. Peer pressure.
I asked her if she knew about the Note 7 fires, and she said, yeah so don't get that particular one. Well, well. Kids are smart. They know that you don't avoid all Toyotas, for example, just because one model has a problem. You just avoid that model.
Okay, so it's a story from just one high school, but apparently they don't care one bit what happened to the Note 7.
Wait. What??? She's a teen girl. She's ALWAYS had an iPhone. Heck, I thought all her friends were stuck on using iMessage.
And she's the same kid who, after recently being offered a new iPhone 7, had me get her a used iPhone 5S instead, "because it's small and still has the headphone jack."
Now she wants a Samsung with the all-front display, as she puts it. Appears she means the Edge. Peer pressure.
I asked her if she knew about the Note 7 fires, and she said, yeah so don't get that particular one. Well, well. Kids are smart. They know that you don't avoid all Toyotas, for example, just because one model has a problem. You just avoid that model.
Okay, so it's a story from just one high school, but apparently they don't care one bit what happened to the Note 7.
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Tim is probably thinking I hope this happens again next year to the Galaxy Note 8 when we can offer a new, sexy, smaller redesigned iPhone 8 Plus with better display that will make a much better alternative than this year's meh, same design iPhone 7 Plus with huge bezels.
I think more folks were choosing the Note for pen support rather dual cameras and the iPhone offers nothing in that department. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but cameras on a smartphone are not on my list of key attributes when picking a phone. If it has a good one all well and good, but brand, screen, op system, speed and cost all come before the camera.
For Apple to benefit, there would need to be iPhone 7+ inventory available... but there isn't
Really. Apple manufacturing 800K+ iPhone 7 units per day being at full capacity, and selling every one of them, is a giant cluster****?
While it takes Samsung 2 weeks to manufacture 2.5M defective and potentially dangerous Note 7 phones (do the math to compare with Apple's volume), causing the Federal Aviation Administration to issue this Prohibition Order, the first of it's kind to be issued.
OK...
Are they making 800K+ iPhone 7's, 7+'s or a combination of both?
You can walk into any store Apple store and buy an iPhone 7 right now... Not true for the 7+
Without knowing the breakdown, we don't know how many 7+ phones they are making. If they didn't (and could have) changed the breakdown to crank out more + models due to the Note 7 disaster I'd say its a missed opportunity. They only way to capture those customers would be to have inventory available.
As Apple has one of the most sophisticated and efficient consumer electronics manufacturing operations in the world, I'm sure they optimized/changed production ratios according to the proprietary data they have to take advantage of the opportunity.
Also, in addition to their contract manufacturers, Apple heavily relies on a very large number of component suppliers (screens, integrated circuits (custom and otherwise), passive components (resistors/capacitors/inductors), camera assemblies, speakers, batteries, buttons, connectors, etc) to be able to turn on a dime and increase production. If there's a weak link, I imagine that's where it is.
The good news is Samsung's Note 7 volume is relatively small compared to iPhone 7 production. And of course not all of it can be captured by Apple as many people are locked into the Android ecosystem. OTOH, even asking vendors to bump up daily volumes, say 800K LCD screens/day to 1M LCD screens/day, could be very difficult considering yields and Apple's strict requirements.
And then that also assumes there is excess manufacturing capacity available, which I suspect there is very little or none on such short notice.
And then all the Samsung customers will have to throw out all their micro USB cables and accessories, or buy adapters for them. It's going to make some manufacturers very rich, and a lot of customers frustrated as cheap Chinese cables flood the market to meet the demand, which aren't fully compatible, or otherwise hard the phones.
But Android smartphones have been using the micro USB port for over a decade. Lightning has only been around 4 years. So it will be less of a burden for Android phones, as they are due for a change, and a more versatile port. However, if Apple moves to completely portless wireless charging in 2-3 years, all mobile phone makers will jump on that bandwagon, so their customer's new investment in USB-C cables and adapters will be wasted. Apple's customers won't be similarly inconvenienced.
