Apple Placing Unprecedented Amount of iPhone 6 Orders, First Batch Estimated at 68 Million Units

[kdarling]

Huh?!? Samsung still outsells Apple phones, 2-2.5x in unit sales. Do your homework!

Most of which is comprised of their low-end models which bring very little profit, ...

That might've been true a couple of years ago, but things have changed.

In 2013 60% of Samsung's smartphone sales were $400 or greater.

Only about 15% were $200 or less.



Moreover, Samsung sells twice as many smartphones as Apple, so we have to double percentages to get to real numbers. E.g. even if only 30% of Samsung's sales are very high end, that's the same as 60% of Apple sales.

 

[adnbek]

That might've been true a couple of years ago, but things have changed.

In 2013 60% of Samsung's smartphone sales were $400 or greater.

Only about 15% were $200 or less.

View attachment 480532

Moreover, Samsung sells twice as many smartphones as Apple, so we have to double percentages to get to real numbers. E.g. even if only 30% of Samsung's sales are very high end, that's the same as 60% of Apple sales.

This was last year and if I recall correctly they also hit record profits that same year.

Considering their overall unit shipments haven't shrunk (and probably grew higher) in 2014 but their profits have dropped for 3 quarters straight, one can only surmise the proportions have skewed towards the low-end once again.

Also, I'm curious about whether these sales distributions factor in price drops and promos. Eg. if Samsung decides to slash the price on a product to clear excess inventory or help boost sluggish sales, is that taken into account in the chart or is it always based on the original MSRP regardless?

 

[fertilized-egg]

That might've been true a couple of years ago, but things have changed.

This was last year and if I recall correctly they also hit record profits that same year.

kdarling's figure is actually from 2012. Samsung hit their high between 2012 - Q3 2013 and proceeded to lose some of the share in the late 2013. In November 2013, Apple reportedly had 65% of the $400+ market worldwide, compared to 35% a year before, while Samsung's share was reduced to 21% from 40% a year ago. (Reference)

Regardless, defining the high-end market as "$400+" doesn't tell the whole picture because Apple concentrates most of their efforts in the $500+ devices compared to Samsung who has a lot more devices in the $400-500 segment.

The troubling sign for Samsung is that they've already used up the obvious drivers for growth, namely a large product portfolio, strong carrier distribution, and extravagant marketing spending, whereas Apple still has some unplayed cards lefts in those areas.

The interesting thing is how it seems nobody foresaw Samsung's sudden deflation in the market as now they have seen three consecutive quarters of decline YoY from them. By 2013 the Apple doomsday scenario was in full effect and yet it's Samsung who's seeing a bigger decline first, mostly for the exact reasons analysts said, but for Apple. Here's a good writeup by Ben Thompson at Stratechery about it: link.

Of course, all this doesn't mean Apple won't run into the same problem faced by Samsung in the near future, and their move to introduce more integration within the OSX-iOS ecosystem is their attempt to fight that off by providing more reasons for users to get the iPhone over Android phones. The result remains to be seen.

As a side note, I thought Google's recent moves with Android were very much in the dis-favor of Samsung in a way since it was mostly eliminating differentiation and encouraging more race-to-the-bottom behaviors in the OEMs, which is mostly not a good news for Samsung.

 

[mib1800]

kdarling's figure is actually from 2012. Samsung hit their high between 2012 - Q3 2013 and proceeded to lose some of the share in the late 2013. In November 2013, Apple reportedly had 65% of the $400+ market worldwide, compared to 35% a year before, while Samsung's share was reduced to 21% from 40% a year ago. (Reference)

Regardless, defining the high-end market as "$400+" doesn't tell the whole picture because Apple concentrates most of their efforts in the $500+ devices compared to Samsung who has a lot more devices in the $400-500 segment.

The troubling sign for Samsung is that they've already used up the obvious drivers for growth, namely a large product portfolio, strong carrier distribution, and extravagant marketing spending, whereas Apple still has some unplayed cards lefts in those areas.

The interesting thing is how it seems nobody foresaw Samsung's sudden deflation in the market as now they have seen three consecutive quarters of decline YoY from them. By 2013 the Apple doomsday scenario was in full effect and yet it's Samsung who's seeing a bigger decline first, mostly for the exact reasons analysts said, but for Apple. Here's a good writeup by Ben Thompson at Stratechery about it: link.

Of course, all this doesn't mean Apple won't run into the same problem faced by Samsung in the near future, and their move to introduce more integration within the OSX-iOS ecosystem is their attempt to fight that off by providing more reasons for users to get the iPhone over Android phones. The result remains to be seen.

As a side note, I thought Google's recent moves with Android were very much in the dis-favor of Samsung in a way since it was mostly eliminating differentiation and encouraging more race-to-the-bottom behaviors in the OEMs, which is mostly not a good news for Samsung.

The only problem with this is most of apple phones are sold on contract for 199 or less.

In countries where phone subsidies is low or non-existence apple sold very few phones compared to Samsung.

If we compare it this way samsung may have sold many more high end phones than apple.

 

[stevejobz]

Shut up and take my money!

 

[doelcm82]

This will provably be the most popular iPhone yet

Every iPhone has been provably the most popular iPhone yet.

Apple's inability to produce an unpopular iPhone shows that they can no longer innovate. Apple is doomed.

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So you 2 are both in the 1% of CC holders that pay off their balance before any interest accrual.

I call Image unless you have proof to back up your claims.

As I mentioned before, usually people who say things like this are those who are in deepest debt living on borrowed money to keep up with the appletons in their community.

Add me to the 1% of CC holders who pay off the balance every month, and I use the card whenever I can, so I don't have to carry much cash.

I tried once to buy a car on a credit card (for the points), but the dealer wouldn't allow more than about $3K on the card. I hate paying interest.