Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The title is a bit misleading. Yes. Apple did ship more units in Q4 of 2016 than Samsung but the latter is still king. Also. Apple shipped 16.1 million more units in 2015.

Note: Shipped products include products shipped to shops and resellers.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RF9
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.
Nope. First, I'm referring to his notion that Apple was only cool because it was small -- that predates iPhone anyway. But when it comes to iPhone, yes it was and *still is* a small status symbol because it's a high-end device. It's in the "affordable luxury" category. That hasn't changed, no matter how many more people own them, because it's still priced in the high-end of smart phones.

Again, the number of people who have it isn't what makes it desirable. People still line up for iPhones, and the 7 is the biggest seller of all, because it's a great phone.

Try again.
 
Samsung releases Galaxy phones early in the year and at least last year the Note was before iPhone. So they aren't targeting calendar Q4 the same way Apple is. I'm aware that Chrismtmas is a big buying period but I would think Galaxy sales ovetake iPhone sales in other quarters.

It just seems to me that this news is pretty meaningless. It's not as if Apple is actually selling more phones overall.
 
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.

I've been around since analog computers. In the early days of home computing, people definitely desired various models partly because of the user cachet surrounding them. That includes the feeling of being unique or an underdog.

Then with the Mac, Apple hired evangelists to purposely help create the still existing cult of Apple.

If people only went by "better product" back then, we'd probably all be using Amigas right now.

While they didn't inventing the category, with the iPhone Apple is the market leader, they changed the way smartphones are designed and work,

I agree. Apple popularized the current style. Which is both good and bad, as some of their UI ideas are not great.

phones before & after iPhone:

Not sure why you used an image with dumb phones. After all, most of those still look the same as they did before. Bar, slide, flip, all the same. Like this:

samsung_before_after2.png


As for smartphones, touchscreen versions had been around for a long while:

a_touch_history1.png


By 2005, most were already evolving toward rounded rectangular full screen displays:

touch_evolution.png

In other words, all touch phones were coming already, with or without Apple. No doubt Apple took some design cues from some of the above and from some well known concepts.

Heck, in trials around the world where phones like the 2005 Pidion above (looks like a 2010 iPhone 4, doesn't it?) were allowed as evidence of prior art, Apple lost their design lawsuits against others.

What Apple did was great. While Apple did not invent the idea, they popularized finger friendly UIs and made them fun. The main reason they could do this though, was because they had no legacy business phones that they felt they had to stay compatible with. Not to mention having a built-in fanbase.
 
Last edited:
That would be impressive, except for the fact that in this case, Company A(pple)'s products WERE given away for free through all the major carriers during the launch of the iPhone 7 and are STILL being given away for free by many.

Whether or not Apple is taking any of that loss off the shoulders of the carriers I can't say. But, I bet a free iPhone helps consumers decide whether to pay for a Samung or get an iPhone for free. "Free" speaks volumes.
Or to get a Samsung phone for $0 down as well. Maybe the promotions didn't go at the same time but as well as the iPhone $0 down the Samsung s7 bogo earlier in the year. Of course to get the iPhone 7 deal you had to trade one up in return.
 
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


Reading Rene Girard will shed some light on this phenomenon. Spoiler Alert... it isn't going to get better.
 
Samsung drooped the ball and Apple came up with iPhone 6SS! Quite balanced outcome if you ask me.
People wanted water resistance. Apple provided. People wanted moved antenna lines. Apple provided. People want better cameras. Apple provided.

There's nothing about the iPhone 7 that's a 6SS unless you're blinded by the external look of the phone, and even then, 40% of the colors are new and the "hideous" antenna lines were moved.
[doublepost=1485971151][/doublepost]
Year-on-Year decline in sales volumes is nothing to be impressed with
I disagree. Year on year decline is largely correlated with market performance, which is beyond the quality of the individual devices.
 
I love my 7 Plus and SE. I bought both.
I had been a hold out of the 6 and 6s. The changes seemed minor to most, but much faster processor, more storage, better camera and finally the minor but vital design tweaks that transformed it from the ugliest iPhone ever made, available only in salamander and gold and light gray with unseemly stripes, ...into a sexy black monolith. That was the icing.

True, there was the tech blog echo-chamber who only believes something if it's farted out by them, who like Nily Patel in his drunken posts declaring it a failure because he was drunk and surely the lack of a 3.5 jack was a crime against humanity. That's what he said.

Luckily no one listens to them. When something blatantly stupid as that came out of Nily Patel and people call him out on the stupidity of his statements, the Verge banned them. The echo-chamber only wants to smell it's own farts. ..Um facts.
 
They way things are going, you probably won't need too many more desktop computers in the future anyway.
Yes, it seems that way. But, aside from security, unless the ISPs start offering GB WAN connections to the major players' servers (er, sorry, "clouds") at reasonable prices, working with large files and datasets needs on-premise storage and services. I SO don't want to switch over to Windows (for a plethora of reasons) but if Apple doesn't surprise me soon, and pleasantly, I won't have a choice.
 
Not even a valid comparison since Apple is in the market of making iPods while Samsung is in the pocketable computer market. Makes as little sense as comparing golf carts and Tesla.
 
Last edited:
Not really. They most likely would have sold more than Apple but it wouldn't have been a blown out of the water scenario. The Note had a great reputation and a dedicated following. It didn't have spectacular sales on the level of Sammy's S series. Regardless of what Samsung did or didn't do, it's pretty hard to discount what Apple did in the 4th quarter. 78 million is 78 million no matter how you slice it.

Spectacular sales of the "Sammy" (lol) S series is what?

Barely more than 50 million for the whole product cycle?
 
People wanted water resistance. Apple provided. People wanted moved antenna lines. Apple provided. People want better cameras. Apple provided.

There's nothing about the iPhone 7

You left out "People wanted redesigned model after years of the same freaking design" I am big Apple fan but this is taking a piss! Let's through the same design year after year and see if our loyal customers still buy it.....!
 
Spectacular sales of the "Sammy" (lol) S series is what?

Barely more than 50 million for the whole product cycle?
Respectfully Zirel, either you're not understanding what you read in my quote or you're blinded by Samsung hate. I'm gonna assume a little bit of column A and a little bit of column B. Regardless, you consistently ignore context in my quotes and go off on some unrelated narrative. What's worse, I take the bait.:oops: But hey, I can control that part of it.
 
Apple report on sales, not units shipped. Samsung don't. Half of Samsung's sales could be sitting in a warehouse for all we know.

According to their SEC 10-K filing, Apple records a sale when an item has been shipped to a retailer. It could still be in transit, much less sitting in a warehouse.

Interestingly, Samsung only records a sale when a unit actually arrives at a retailer.

In both cases, yes, units can sit unsold to END users for some time. From their quarterly calls, we for sure know it happens to Apple fairly often, especially after quarters where Apple notes "record" sales.

---- Here's why you and others got messed up on this topic a while back:

During the U.S. Apple-Samsung trials, Samsung had to present numbers to the judge, of how many U.S.-sold tablets could be subject to fines IF the jury found that those particular tablets had infringed on Apple design patents. (The jury later found Samsung's tablets had NOT infringed, btw.)

Some blogger, either very stupidly or very cleverly, then wrote an article bogusly comparing Samsung's reported WORLD shipments (i.e.sales) with the far fewer trial-related-only U.S.-only sales (which back then were about 1/20th of world sales).

That nonsense comparison between world and US-might-infringe numbers is what started the whole "shipped vs sold" meme that a few people still repeat.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: tooltalk
I disagree. Year on year decline is largely correlated with market performance, which is beyond the quality of the individual devices.

But the overall market grew and both for the Quarter and YoY Apple lost market share

Someone else having a rubbish quarter is nothing to be excited about
 
It's more like Samsung's failure than Apple's own victory.
Apple and Samsung have different release cycles. For Apple to NOT exceed Samsung in Q4 regularly, shows just how much bigger Samsung is.

The bigger question is - does it matter? Selling more **** will always get you more volume. Samsung's sales lead in units isn't due to flagship phones competing directly with the iPhone. It's due to the millions and millions of unbearably terrible rubbish phones they sell. At the flagship level, where Apple competes, they've always blown Samsung away.
Thats it Apple is done, no more good ideas, a new company called Orange has all the best ideas! This report is fake news...
 
Bad news for Samsung this year, I really liked the Note 7 Spec when It was announced!
and of course that's good news for Apple, hope that this year will be better!
 
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.

And another thing: Apple products never spend a lot of time on any shelf. Apple is pretty good with giving stores just enough stock and replenishing it often.

I can't imagine there is any store who has to send products back to Apple because they couldn't sell them.

When an Apple product arrives in the store... it tends to go home with an owner fairly quickly.

Plus Apple doesn't allow stores order too many and have them all sitting in a warehouse.
 
And another thing: Apple products never spend a lot of time on any shelf. Apple is pretty good with giving stores just enough stock and replenishing it often.

I can't imagine there is any store who has to send products back to Apple because they couldn't sell them.

When an Apple product arrives in the store... it tends to go home with an owner fairly quickly.

Plus Apple doesn't allow stores order too many and have them all sitting in a warehouse.
Everything you said is wrong. It's all completely wrong. Where in the world did you get these ideas from? Holy Sweet Jeebus.
 
Everything you said is wrong. It's all completely wrong. Where in the world did you get these ideas from? Holy Sweet Jeebus.

My bad.

So are there stores that have tons of iPhones that they cannot unload on customers?

Geez... Apple sold 800,000 iPhones every day last quarter. How long did each one have to sit on the shelf before finding an owner?

Not long, right?
 
  • Like
Reactions: citysnaps
And another thing: Apple products never spend a lot of time on any shelf. Apple is pretty good with giving stores just enough stock and replenishing it often..

Obviously you never pay attention to Apple's quarterly sales vs. channel numbers :D

It's not that uncommon for the world's retailers to end up with millions of unsold iPhones at the end of a quarter.

Interestingly, this seems to always happen at times when Apple needed those extra retail sales numbers to look better than the year before. In fact, you can almost count on it.

That said, yes, eventually most all those phones usually do get sold.
 
That said, yes, eventually most all those phones usually do get sold.

Yeah... that mas my main point. Ignore all my other nonsense. :)

I don't think iPhones get sent to a landfill in New Mexico because people aren't buying them. Though they would keep the E.T. cartridges company if they did!
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.