Apple Regains Market Share in Some Countries with Strong iPhone 5s Sales

[2457282]

From the chart it is quite obvious that iphone only sell when the price is cheap or free like its competitors (us and japan).

Iphone doesn't sell well at all when there is no subsidies and more expensive than its competitors. Looking at it another way nobody wants to pay a premium for iPhone with similar spec phones can be gotten at half or one third the price.

So apple is only competitive at the free or cheap end of the market.

I think that maybe there is yet another way to look at this and IMHO, a more correct way. First Apple is still selling more phones than last year in the same quarter, so a % Drop does not equate to lower sales. Second, the fact that when the prices perception is the same, people will go to apple says two things --1. if price is equal they prefer the iphone. 2. price is a major driver in the purchasing decision.

I know there are those that think size matters - it does to a some groups, some want big others prefer small, so they wash out in the end. But it is all about price. The majority of the world wants sub $400USD phones. Apple does not make those and therefore does not even compete. However, in the above $400USD market, Apple is actually the best selling phone. The problem is that as the market expands, it expands into the low end, not the high end. Apple will never win in the % of market race. They only win in the quality, ecosystem, and profit race.

 

[Marlor]

Meanwhile, the iPhone's surging popularity in Japan has continued in the months following its debut on the country's largest carrier, NTT DoCoMo

It was popular even before that.

It makes this Wired story look a little ridiculous in hindsight:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090227193946/http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/02/why-the-iphone.html

 

[2499723]

I wish there was some other way to illustrate smartphone market share (...)

Thanks for this post. I sometimes forget about this point and it's an important one to make. Unfortunately, no one made it in the late 90s either when comparing computers over $1299. Perhaps we would have seen something slightly different for Apple as well. Instead, people kept bailing and software developers moved on. Seems Apple needed a product like the iPod to shake things up again. Somehow I doubt a watch or TV or iOS-inspired blender is going to do the trick with Android. It's a shame, because I had a Nexus 4 for a while and the experience was just annoying. Not atrocious, but so much more work than it needed to be. The integration of Apple products is truly a thing of beauty. =)

 

[nikaru]

countries without subsidies

Spain: 7.6%
Italy: 12.9%
China: 17.9%


The biggest beneficiaries of carrier subsidies is Apple.

Subsidies mask the true price of a phone. This favors the sales of high end smartphone.

If you consider how popular the chineses phones are in these coutries, the iPhone is a big hit. Here in Spain, the market is practically saturated with low-end android phones both from Samsung and other manfucaturers. In the high-end segment of the market, iPhone is dominating. You can actually could say that the iPhone is the most popular smarthphone in the 500+$ price tag.

So these are great numbers in my opinion, especially if you consider that the iPhone has only 2 phones, both flagship devices, and both are more expensive than any android device. I think its not fair to comapre the iPhone sales numbers with the the low end Android smarthphone sales numbers. Its like comparing Playstation sales number and Xbox sales, including PS Vita.

iPhone is no way equal to a 200$ Motorola, Samsung or other low-end smarthphone, so the comparison is stuped.

The majority of the people who has Galaxy Mini for example cant afford iPhone and thats the only reason these people are on Android platform. Actually, the existance of low-end market segment with people who cant or dont want to spend 600+$ on smarthphone is the only reason Android has any significant market share.

If we compare iPhone sales numebers with Galaxy S5 or Sony P1 or HTC One or other flashship smarthphone, im sure that Apple is beating them 5 to 1 and in the case of Nokia 20 to 1.

 

[2499723]

The problem is that as the market expands, it expands into the low end, not the high end. Apple will never win in the % of market race. They only win in the quality, ecosystem, and profit race.

Nice one. It would be nice to see something like the iPhone 5c drop to around $350. It could at least scrape the surface of the sub-$400 market. But perhaps Apple is worried it would pull people away from the 5s and future 6, so they'd rather sell fewer phones at greater margins.

 

[peterdevries]

From the chart it is quite obvious that iphone only sell when the price is cheap or free like its competitors (us and japan).

Iphone doesn't sell well at all when there is no subsidies and more expensive than its competitors. Looking at it another way nobody wants to pay a premium for iPhone with similar spec phones can be gotten at half or one third the price.

So apple is only competitive at the free or cheap end of the market.

You can't draw those conclusions ONLY from this chart. In many countries the subscription model is too complex to do a direct comparison. It is also dependent on the retail model Apple employs in each country.

In addition you neglect to factor in the local preference for other manufacturers. E.g. Germany is quite wary of Apple products, while The Netherlands is more Apple minded. As mentioned Italy is becoming a Nokia country.

 

[windowpain]

Nice one. It would be nice to see something like the iPhone 5c drop to around $350. It could at least scrape the surface of the sub-$400 market. But perhaps Apple is worried it would pull people away from the 5s and future 6, so they'd rather sell fewer phones at greater margins.

I think this is spot on too. I seem to remember them not being too worried about actual market share, as they are making something like 90% of the profit from the cell phone market. (It was maybe part of a Phil Schiller Keynote...my memory fails me I'm afraid.)

Edit: It appears I was too generous, this article has them at 73% of the profit.

 

[2499723]

Steve Jobs was pretty clear he never wanted to enter the netbook market because he felt it was an inferior product. Makes you wonder if he sought a similar approach to low-cost phones and now we're living that reality. I suppose it could work ultimately. Look what happened to netbooks. Also, when Apple tried to go the licensed route with their OS in the mid-late 90s, it completely backfired. Hmm. I'll sit back and wait.

 

[Oletros]

If you consider how popular the chineses phones are in these coutries, the iPhone is a big hit

Chinese smartphones are not popular in Spain

Here in Spain, the market is practically saturated with low-end android phones both from Samsung and other manfucaturers.

S2, S3, Note are not low-end smartphones

iPhone is no way equal to a 200$ Motorola, Samsung or other low-end smarthphone, so the comparison is stuped.

iPhone 5C/4S is equal to a Motorola Moto G

If we compare iPhone sales numebers with Galaxy S5 or Sony P1 or HTC One or other flashship smarthphone, im sure that Apple is beating them 5 to 1 and in the case of Nokia 20 to 1.

iPhones sales? Now you don't split them between 4S, 5C and 5S?

 

[nikaru]

Nice one. It would be nice to see something like the iPhone 5c drop to around $350. It could at least scrape the surface of the sub-$400 market. But perhaps Apple is worried it would pull people away from the 5s and future 6, so they'd rather sell fewer phones at greater margins.

No reason to do this. There is sub-400$ market, then there is sub-200$ market and in China you have sub-100$ market. These market existed and will exist in the future. Cant see why Apple has to enter this market segments. Its like questioning why Ferrari does not have a 30 000$ vehicle in their cataloge. If Ferrari enters 30 000$ market segment they will fail, just because you cant make good Ferrari for 30 000$.

 

[xlii]

"... countries such as Europe..."? Seriously?

... if Putin has his way... perhaps.

 

[Boatboy24]

Being down 5% in China is inexcusable. How do they explain that one?

 

[Oletros]

Being down 5% in China is inexcusable. How do they explain that one?

In fact they have sold more iPhones in China but the overall market growth is bigger than Apple growth

 

[PracticalMac]

Meanwhile, the iPhone's surging popularity in Japan has continued in the months following its debut on the country's largest carrier, NTT DoCoMo:

Sunnebo continues: "Japan's love affair with Apple shows no sign of fading. Even though the iPhone has now been available on Japan's largest carrier, NTT DoCoMo, for a number of months Apple still accounts for more than 40% of sales on the network. The success of the iPhone is also filtering through to the iPad, with almost a quarter of Japanese iPhone owners also owning an iPad. With smartphone penetration in Japan lagging well behind Europe and the US, Japan will remain a key growth market for Apple."

Isn't NTT happy they gave in?

 

[coolspot18]

Only 19% in Europe? Why is Apple weak here? It's a rich, Western economy with affluent consumers (compared to developing markets) nearly always paying more for American electronic goods than Americans do (eg Adobe software, Microsoft software, Apple hardware and so on). Maybe that's the problem?

Canada is in the same marketshare range as well; Europeans/Canadians like to have open and interoperable platforms.


In Europe, phones are usually bought outright - and buying a 600+ smartphone is hard to swallow for any customer.

 

[nikaru]

Chinese smartphones are not popular in Spain

S2, S3, Note are not low-end smartphones

iPhone 5C/4S is equal to a Motorola Moto G

iPhones sales? Now you don't split them between 4S, 5C and 5S?

iPhone 5C is 599 euro, 4S is 499 euro (not available from apple.es) - Moto G is 179 euro on amazon so please, dont tell me that we are talking about equal smarthphones.

 

[Oletros]

iPhone 5C is 599 euro, 4S is 499 euro (not available from apple.es) - Moto G is 179 euro on amazon so please, dont tell me that we are talking about equal smarthphones.

Well, if you only look at price, then yes, they are not the same smartphone.

If you look at their characteristics, they are in the same range.

But how can anyone compare smartphones by its characteristics and not just their price, they must be fools.

 

[timber]

iPhone 5C is 599 euro, 4S is 499 euro (not available from apple.es) - Moto G is 179 euro on amazon so please, dont tell me that we are talking about equal smarthphones.

The Motorola G is perfectly comparable to those devices and the fact that it costs around 1/3 of their price just shows that nowadays you don't need to go high end to have a good smartphone experience.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Subsidies mask the true price of a phone. This favors the sales of high end smartphone.

Close, but not exact. Subsidies are but one form of price masking. It's the masking of the price, not the route to get there, that is the sleight of hand. All of the U.S. cellco's new "unsubsidized" plans mask every bit as much as the older subsidized ones.

 

[PracticalMac]

Just make a 128 GB version please!

Just make 32GB the base model too, please!

 

[Michael Scrip]

I'm no rocket scientist but Android is number one (by double digits) in every market except for Japan and Apple has lost 7.8% while Android gained 8.3% in United States. This looks pretty bad if you ask me.
Not trying to be a troll but "if" the iPhone 6 is $100 more how is it possible for Apple to catch Android anywhere without losing it's largest market Japan eek? Are there any brain surgeons that can answer this?

Apple will never catch up to "Android"

Curiously... you're comparing a single company to an entire platform.

There are simply too many Android manufacturers selling too many Android phones. It's a volume thing. So if there was an award for the platform that sells the most units... that award would go to Android... not Apple.

But that's not exactly the death sentence for Apple that you think it is.

Apple happens to be the #2 smartphone manufacturer in the world by unit sales... despite the fact that they only sell rather expensive phones. Surely that deserves an award. Oh and Apple actually makes money selling their phones. You can't say that about most of the industry.

But yeah... Apple will never sell as many phones as "Android"

Similarly... Honda will never sell as many cars as Toyota... and Wendy's will never sell as many hamburgers as McDonald's. Should we be worried about those companies too?

 

[cdmoore74]

It was popular even before that.

It makes this Wired story look a little ridiculous in hindsight:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090227193946/http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/02/why-the-iphone.html

That article was written back in 2009 when Apple was dominate against Android; in the USA. Pretty useless when the market has changed so rapidly in the last 5 years. The Chinese are about to invade the market with cheap Android flagships which will not only impact Apple but will force other Android OEM’s to react with a price war. In the meantime you have Apple trying to “raise” the cost of the iPhone to $300. By the time iPhone 6 comes out phones like the S5, HTC One M8 or LG G3 could by $100 to free on contract and phones like the Nexus (?) and One Plus One will be $300 off contract.
Using any information even from a year ago is pretty useless. The market changes and reacts so fast. It’s Apple that reacts so slow to market changes. Apple will still be selling the same 4” phone for the next 5 months and it’s a known fact that people tend to slow down from now to the next major release. No doubt Apple makes good products but their pricing and release cycles need work.

 

[thelookingglass]

In fact they have sold more iPhones in China but the overall market growth is bigger than Apple growth

Yeah, but if your rate of growth is slower than the market's rate of growth, that's not good either. Just simply claiming that all is well because we sold more phones this year than last is extreme short-sighted thinking and misses the point.

The market share battle absolutely does matter when you're talking about building a platform, which is what Apple is doing with iOS. Having said that, I agree with the conclusions on here that Android marketshare is as strong as it is globally primarily because of pricing. The ecosystem itself isn't necessarily very sticky which means that many consumers still view the iPhone as an aspirational purchase that they'll graduate to once they have or are willing to spend the money.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Once again, marketing and advertising rules it all.

iOS looks more and more like 90s Windows.

So, what you're saying is that in a few years iOS will have its Windows XP?

 

[Gasu E.]

Nice one. It would be nice to see something like the iPhone 5c drop to around $350. It could at least scrape the surface of the sub-$400 market. But perhaps Apple is worried it would pull people away from the 5s and future 6, so they'd rather sell fewer phones at greater margins.

They need to make the equivalent of an iPhone shuffle for a low price. I could imagine some nice shuffle features. For example, when you select a destination in Map, you could be directed to a completely random place. I bet Apple already has this technology!