Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Overtakes Samsung As World's Top Smartphone Vendor in Q4 2016
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Wait, people are still harping on the iPhone 7 not being enough of an upgrade? smh. Best phone ever, by a mile, especially with the advent of the AirPods.
The se is higher end than the recent ads "giving away" certain lower end Samsung phones for near zero in return for a two year activation.
The reasoning only fails when you miss the point of the quote and the context in which it was written.
Let me try it another way. There are essentially two OSes for smartphones: iOS and Android. If you want iOS, there is only one place to go. If you want Android, there are myriad choices available. To get a potential customer Samsung has to first overcome the iOS or Android choice. Once that hurdle is passed, they then have to survive the gauntlet of competitors to be the Android device of choice. Yes, iOS and Android compete. Once that competition is over that's when the battle royale begins in the Android arena.Inherent in that choice between iOS and Android is all the things you're talking about; usability, features, etc.
In an Olympic race where the other guy falls over the hurdles and you don't, you still get the gold no?
You're right but the old argument has always been about Apple's profits, not marketshare. Now at least Apple haters cannot say that Apple never outsells Samsung. It just adds some new ammunition to old, stale arguments.
Easy to joke about that, but they've gone downhill in their overall product strategy and quality, not financial or volume performance. Different metrics, but very important ones to us all.
Bad example. No matter how poorly I perform, so long as my time is better than the competition, I always win the gold.
While I've been disappointed with how Tim and Co. have been managing the Mac, I truly believe something great is one the way, and the Mac will make a resurgence. If they fail to deliver on this, oh boy.....
Apple doesn't require all resellers to pay upfront. It may, however, require some to.
Apple currently has around $16 billion in accounts receivable, not counting non-trade receivables.
You are correct though that Apple counts (what many refer to as) shipped units as sales (for the reported sell-in numbers). But in Apple's case I think it's fair to say that those shipped numbers more closely track actual sales numbers than is the case for some others. There are a number of reasons for that. For instance, Apple has a strong online retail operation and those sales are only counted when the shipped products are received by the customers.
"higher end" is not "high end"...it's just a comparative term. Stay focused on the point made.
If your goal is getting the gold instead of how you got the gold, then I suppose you can be happy knowing you're not really the best, but due to the other runners misfortune, you won anyways.
This is horrible news! Damn you samsung, you had one job! put pressure on Apple so they could innovate and stop dripping out new features little by little.... you almost had it with the note 7 but you BLEW it!
Now Cook is puffing out his chest and loving his strategies, next we will have same iPhone design for 4 years, because what the heck people are still going to buy it.
Now Cook is puffing out his chest and loving his strategies, next we will have same iPhone design for 4 years, because what the heck people are still going to buy it.
You have a classic misunderstanding of Apple. they weren't desired because they were a small group -- they were designed because theyre better products. still are, no matter how many people use iPhones.Remember back when Apple fans liked not being part of just another mass consumer product owned by everyone from kids to grannies, rich or poor?
How things have changed. Now being a tiny piece of a massive group is okay.
/s
Speaking of massive groups, phone sales from the popular "Others" continue to wipe everyone else off the map
[doublepost=1485959536][/doublepost]
Absolute nonsense. while they didn't inventing the category, with the iPhone Apple is the market leader, they changed the way smartphones are designed and work, and it's Apple who is constantly adding new innovation that is copied and cloned by the other players. they own the market and the profits and the consumer satisfaction ratings. oh, and their products DON'T EXPLODE. oops.
phones before & after iPhone:
Uh...no. iPhones were definitely a status symbol years back. After the "cheap" color iPhones came out and once Walmart started selling them, that all changed.
i'm not sure if you've paid attention to the state of the world lately.. But there's absolutely a very large group of self centred people in this world who absolutely believe "If you're not first, you're last" and are willing to step on anyone to be first.
this whole back and forth between whose "best" is silly.
Smartphone sales are NOT A ZERO SUM GAME. it's entirely possible for both Apple, and Samsung to exist together in the same market and both be wildly successful..
This "US v THEM". "WIN AT ALL COSTS" mentality that seems to be so prevalent these days is sickening
Yay! A company that sold a item to me also sold more items than another company! I feel better about myself because I'm on a winning team!
It's obviously difficult making phones on a mass scale. Samsung has shown how difficult it can be.
You are correct in that Apple doesn't require most resellers to pay upfront. It's like any other business transaction, customer are billed and pay accordingly. I don't think anyone is doubting the veracity of Apple's numbers. The complaint relates to the "Apple reports sold and everyone else reports shipped" myth. That myth is not true in any way shape or form. It's perpetuated because some of us misunderstand what customer primarily means from a business perspective. Best Buy, Verizon, AT&T and the like are Apple's primary customers, not us.
It boggles me that people assume same externals=same phone. There are plenty of things that are different about the 7. Sometimes, I think people would take same internals with a new case and call that a new phone.
How does the article not make that clear? Which part of this confused you?
Yeah... this is pretty much the same every year. Apple always does well in Q4, but that's when the new phones are released. Samsung does well in quarters when they release a new phone, though their issues with exploding phones this year put a dent in things, literally and figuratively.
[doublepost=1485960907][/doublepost]
Sometimes? I always think that.