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The $91B of Apples sales were for everything they do...$56B was iPhone v $21B Samsung Mobile
Not entirely accurate.

Samsung IM (Mobile) division sells: smartphones, dumb phones, tablets, computers and telecommunications equipment (to carriers). It’s not just a smartphone division, though smartphones make up the largest single piece.

So to compare to Apple you need to add up iPhone, iPad and Mac sales which come to $69 billion vs Samsung Mobile at $21 billion. Nothing short of a slaughter.
 
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Pretty incredible. Sell the same amount of phones for $71B more in revenue. Samsung needs to rethink their strategy, but I am not sure where they go. Focus on the low end and revenue dips even further, focus on the high end and Apple is your main competition. It's a lose lose.

I think a good place for them to start would be to support their phones longer. Actually show their customers they're serious about end to end support of their devices.

Until then, they'll remain sloppy seconds.
 
Ah, you know, it's rather Apple that should rethink its strategy. When you only sell so-called high-end products, there are 7+ billion people on the planet that will never ever be able to afford your products. So Apple is milking the people who have the money to spare, but there is a natural limit to that sales strategy as well. Unless everything capitalists want to believe and unlike everything they teach people in business schools, you just cannot grow forever. Resources - and markets - are limited.

Being able to reach a billion+ active devices with super expensive products is quite an achievement, and obviously a relevant market share in first world countries. But... "The rest of us" is buying something else that doesn't run iOS, and we are the larger community. Maybe not by budget, but by sheer amount of people. Even though people like to look at a Porsche and even though Porsche gets a lot of press coverage, most people on this planet will never ever buy or drive one, and most of what you see on the streets are cheaper low-end cars. But unlike an iPhone, a Porsche at least still is a real status symbol...

In the grand scheme of things, though, none of this really matters. These things are just cars and phones and civilization won't crumble if they go away over night.

I am not really sure what you are getting at. Obviously, the goal of a company is to grow revenue, which Apple is doing very well. I don't think they need to change their strategy at all. They have made concessions to allow for an iPhone at almost every price point, from the SE to the 11 to keeping the previous years phone's in the lineup at a discount. Since Apple focuses on quality, those more cost efficient devices are still better than anything the competition has to offer, mainly because of iOS. This creates a halo effect and increases that already huge base of customers you mentioned, who then want AirPods, Apple Watches, and Apple Music. I think their strategy is just fine. To your last point, I think you are selling short the value of cars and smartphones, they are critical to our society today.
 
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Total growth -6% ... that is the penalty for not delivering a 4" SE2 and this is just the beginning...
 
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As a consumer, I would like to see Apple offer the “moral” equivalent to the base $325 iPad for other product lines, such as the iPhone. So, maybe the rumored $399 “SE2” will be that phone.

While Apple is a higher end brand, it helps to have some entry level products in the mix to bring new consumers and young people into the ecosystem.
 
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Ah, you know, it's rather Apple that should rethink its strategy. When you only sell so-called high-end products, there are 7+ billion people on the planet that will never ever be able to afford your products. So Apple is milking the people who have the money to spare, but there is a natural limit to that sales strategy as well. Unless everything capitalists want to believe and unlike everything they teach people in business schools, you just cannot grow forever. Resources - and markets - are limited.

Being able to reach a billion+ active devices with super expensive products is quite an achievement, and obviously a relevant market share in first world countries. But... "The rest of us" is buying something else that doesn't run iOS, and we are the larger community. Maybe not by budget, but by sheer amount of people. Even though people like to look at a Porsche and even though Porsche gets a lot of press coverage, most people on this planet will never ever buy or drive one, and most of what you see on the streets are cheaper low-end cars. But unlike an iPhone, a Porsche at least still is a real status symbol...

In the grand scheme of things, though, none of this really matters. These things are just cars and phones and civilization won't crumble if they go away over night.
Apple is “milking” people? Didn’t think Apple has do or die type products that forced people to buy into the brand.

It’s ironic you say an iPhone isn’t a status symbol, there are those who vehemently disagree with you.
 
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Not entirely accurate.

Samsung IM (Mobile) division sells: smartphones, dumb phones, tablets, computers and telecommunications equipment (to carriers). It’s not just a smartphone division, though smartphones make up the largest single piece.

So to compare to Apple you need to add up iPhone, iPad and Mac sales which come to $69 billion vs Samsung Mobile at $21 billion. Nothing short of a slaughter.

Don't be ridiculous!! Let's add all the screens, memory chips etc that Samsung put into Apples phones as well then?
 
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Ah, you know, it's rather Apple that should rethink its strategy. When you only sell so-called high-end products, there are 7+ billion people on the planet that will never ever be able to afford your products. So Apple is milking the people who have the money to spare, but there is a natural limit to that sales strategy as well.

I think the strategy has been working quite well for them. There's no reason to be everything to everybody. That said, there are plenty of companies making money serving the lower tiers of the market...just not very much money. It's a low-margin high-volume business. Samsung is essentially cross-subsidizing its low-end phone business because it's making its money off of the components.
 
It’s ironic really. Many years ago, people claimed that the iphone would be commoditised by cheaper android phones. Turns out it’s Samsung being sandwiched between Apple at the high end and cheaper Chinese OEMs at the low end.

I don’t see a way out for them. Samsung lacks a cohesive software and service portfolio to adequately differentiate their product offerings and pumping hardware specs only gets you so far.

Samsung is better off selling smartphone components to Apple than trying to compete with them head on.

You're absolutely right. As we shift away from people upgrading yearly, people have more so focused on quality and longevity in their devices, where Apple will likely always be king. Samsung lacks any real differentiation in the marketplace and continues to be behind in performance, security, privacy, ecosystem, apps, and support. That's not a winning strategy. You could be right, the component game is where they can still be a major player - a long term partnership with Apple would make sense for them.
 
One number I haven't seen bandied about lately is the % of total profit Apple sees from smartphone sales. Over the last few years it was 60% to over 100% (yes, over) of the total available profit in the industry. Curious where that stands now, but it is certainly got to be over 50% still. To me consistency with this number is way more interesting than volume and market share and where it really counts, $ in the bank.
 
I think the strategy has been working quite well for them. There's no reason to be everything to everybody. That said, there are plenty of companies making money serving the lower tiers of the market...just not very much money. It's a low-margin high-volume business. Samsung is essentially cross-subsidizing its low-end phone business because it's making its money off of the components.

I agree with you about not being everything to everybody. However, sometimes it behooves a business to have some lower priced offerings to bring folks into the ecosystem. This is especially true for young folks that you want to pickup as life long customers. As I mentioned before, I think the base iPad is a great example. There really is no better tech value IMHO. It would be great if Apple offered something similar in their iPhone line-up. You could argue the iPhone 8 at $449 is close, but I think the reported iPhone 9 at $399 might be the ticket.
 
I swear, Macrumors loves to post articles like these to troll Samsung users on here. I mean that’s great and all that Apple surpassed Samsung, (and I’m an avid Apple supporter), but I feel like these types of threads just end up with endless debacles about which smartphone manufacturer is ‘better’. [<— Which we all know is Apple. ]
 
Don't be ridiculous!! Let's add all the screens, memory chips etc that Samsung put into Apples phones as well then?
Why would we do that? Apple doesn’t make any of those. When you compare Apple products to equivalent Samsung products, Apple mops the floor with them.

As pointed out in the other thread, the iPhone by itself generated $5 billion more revenue than ALL of Samsung combined.
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Bragging about more profit is complete nonsense when it doesn't convert more android users to iPhone.
Apple will never convert the typical Android user (who owns a $50-100 phone) into becoming an iPhone user since those Android users are in a completely different market.

That’s like complaining that Rolls Royce bragging about profit is pointless since they’re not doing a good job converting Honda Civic owners to buy a new Rolls.
 
Ah, you know, it's rather Apple that should rethink its strategy. When you only sell so-called high-end products, there are 7+ billion people on the planet that will never ever be able to afford your products. So Apple is milking the people who have the money to spare, but there is a natural limit to that sales strategy as well. Unless everything capitalists want to believe and unlike everything they teach people in business schools, you just cannot grow forever. Resources - and markets - are limited.

Being able to reach a billion+ active devices with super expensive products is quite an achievement, and obviously a relevant market share in first world countries. But... "The rest of us" is buying something else that doesn't run iOS, and we are the larger community. Maybe not by budget, but by sheer amount of people. Even though people like to look at a Porsche and even though Porsche gets a lot of press coverage, most people on this planet will never ever buy or drive one, and most of what you see on the streets are cheaper low-end cars. But unlike an iPhone, a Porsche at least still is a real status symbol...

In the grand scheme of things, though, none of this really matters. These things are just cars and phones and civilization won't crumble if they go away over night.

Only they're not really "high end products" in terms of cost. They are at the top range within the product category, but we're not talking about $60,000 - $100,000 Porsches, we're talking about phones in the $450 (iPhone 8) to $1,450 range (iPhone 11 Pro Max w/512 GB). In terms of 24 payments, $18.75 - $60.42 monthly.

These are mass-market products sold as if they are luxury goods - same marketing psychology, much much larger number of units sold.

This is affordable to just about anyone in the middle class on up, it's not just something for the 1%. And they are discretionary items; cheaper smartphones are available from other makers that provide all essential communications functions (and much more) - Apple's practices do not prevent anyone of limited financial means from having smartphone service, just as Porsche's existence doesn't prevent the masses from owning a car.

Part of the psychology of luxury goods is that not everyone can afford them. As soon as that bubble is broken (by producing bargain-priced goods with the luxury name), the value of the brand is lost. It's why Volkswagen Group sells mass-market quantities of Volkswagens under that name, and much smaller numbers of luxury-priced vehicles under names like Porsche, Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, and Lamborghini. Although I seriously doubt Apple would do it, if they wanted to sell in the low-priced mass market they'd be best to buy a company like Xiaomi and keep selling Xiaomi-branded phones running a differently-branded OS.

As to whether Apple should rethink its strategy... From the standpoint of economics, you have to be kidding. Forget about units sold, look at Apple's financial statements.
 
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I swear, Macrumors loves to post articles like these to troll Samsung users on here. I mean that’s great and all that Apple surpassed Samsung, (and I’m an avid Apple supporter), but I feel like these types of threads just end up with endless debacles about which smartphone manufacturer is ‘better’. [<— Which we all know is Apple. ]
But what about the Macrumors articles that show Apple LOSING market share to Samsung and others? That's where the many years old "Apple is going under" memes come from. It seems to me that MacRumors publishes the data as it is released whether it is good or bad for Apple.
 
The fun thing about these estimates, is nobody knows the margin of error.
The fun thing is comparing quarters that are at different phases of the product cycle and drawing conclusions.

MR could save a lot of trouble just titling their articles: "Apple vs. Samsung: Pick a side!"
 
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