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Apple Regains Market Share in Some Countries with Strong iPhone 5s Sales
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Good point.
Price masking can include such things as subsidies, outright loans, and trade-in programs. That's why Apple has been encouraging or providing the latter two methods in places without carrier subsidies.
When people use the term "subsidy", they mean all those methods.
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As an aside, there are plenty of charts showing the wholesale price range of phones being sold around the world. Basically it's like:
- ........ 40% over $500
- ....... 35% between $200-$500
- ..... 25% less than $200
The cheapest wholesale price (low end) phones are not the biggest sellers, like many people think, because the hidden phone price is not the important factor.
What's more important, is what people pay directly out of pocket. In that case, yes, it'll most likely be the lower perceived price deals that are the majority... whether that's a unsubsidized $250 Chinese Android phone, or a $200 subsidized iPhone 5S.
All around the world, rich or poor, the magic price limit for most people is ~$250, whether subsidized or not. (I didn't come up with this number, btw; it's a known factor. It's why Ballmer laughed at the idea of the original iPhone selling for $600 in the US, and it's why carriers subsidize phones to be at or below that limit. )
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This is why I bought AAPL back at $520 
The iPhone 6 should drive it to over $625. And the iWatch.... Well, actually I have no idea about the iWatch.
The iPhone 6 should drive it to over $625. And the iWatch.... Well, actually I have no idea about the iWatch.
what is the reason for that?
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.
if ios is not a platform what is it?
Not all of Europe is rich. I can think of the Roma living in third world conditions, whole countries of Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Greece, Portugal etc bringing down the average affluence.
Just goes to show that market share without a great deal of other context isn't always a good indicator.
Tim Cook re: Q2 FY14
We gained smartphone share in many developed and emerging markets including the U.S., the UK, Japan, Canada, Germany, France, Vietnam and Greater China, just to mention a few. In fact, we established a new all-time record for total iPhone sales in the BRIC countries.
[...]
When we look at our company performance on a geographic basis, were especially proud of our very strong results in Greater China, where we established an all time quarterly revenue record of almost $10 billion including the results from our retail stores.
Luca Maestri
The addition of China Mobile coupled with great response to our more affordably priced iPhone 4S led to an all time quarterly record for iPhone sales in Greater China. We look forward to broadening our relationship with China Mobile as they expand points of sale and continue to build out their 4G network.
[...]
iPhone also continued to perform exceptionally well in many developing markets. In Greater China, Brazil, Indonesia, Poland and Turkey. iPhone sales grew by strong double-digits year-over-year, and in India and Vietnam sales more than doubled.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/apples-ceo-discusses-f2q2014-results-003308794.html
I get that; but it is a huge drop in market share, considering what has changed for them over there.
Don't know all the reasons, but one is definitely the price. In addition Nokia / MS has got attractive conditions for corporates prepared to buy in bulk (that's how they fooled my company to use Nokia - I'm now on BYOD, tried the Nokia 925 and took it back. It sucked.).
Well, iOS is of course a platform, but comparing iOS with Android is not really fair due to the different business models behind the use of the platform.
People try to make it a clean comparison all the time by injecting rules etc, whereas it is impossible. They are two different things due to all the factors such as development, contracts, hardware-software separation, customisation etc involved.
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Reading this, I hope you own a bicycle also.
you mention price and enticements for corporations you think apple is too relaxed or overconfident?
dont want to go off topic but what about the nokias didnt you like?
well i felt it was a very badly chosen word since apple is certainly not a little mom and pop store competing against the industry. i dont care much for these asterisks in every sales comparison where apple is losing %. apple choses how it plays this game and an obvious benefit is the lack of defragmentation in their market. you can never have it both ways.
In some markets, yes. Overall, I'm not convinced it's a good idea. Especially not if they really go with TWO larger phones.
Apple is weak in certain markets - and phone size won't change that. Many Germans and Spaniards don't like Apple (or any other American products). Manufacturing phones that look and feel just like Samsung's devices will only encourage those people to buy more Samsung devices (with Apple being seen as a follower, not a leader).
In other markets the strategy may work to some degree. But for the most part in lower socio-economic brackets, so actual sales may not make much of dent in the end.
People like me on the other hand may jump ship. I'm your typical long-standing Blackberry user. I only gave up on the BB because they'll be going out of business soon (and the Q10 came too late). I reluctantly switched to the iPhone 5. Why not any of the Android phones? Two reasons: in my geographic region they're not really the standard for business use. More importantly though I didn't want a big phone. The 5 is already slightly too big and it has a few other things that are not really great (such as the email management compared to BB). So I could see that people like me might go elsewhere if they come out with a 4.7 and 5.5 inch "phone". 4" is max for me. 3" would be better.
You're absolutely right.... Apple/iOS are interchangeable in this case.
My point was... iOS is a platform from a single company.
"Android" is a platform from multiple companies.
That was the difference I was trying to point out... since the previous comment said Apple vs Android.
So let me clarify... Apple sells plenty of smartphones for a single company.
But they will never catch up to the COMBINED efforts of DOZENS of companies.
Pretty sure there are more Android to iOS switchers than the other way around. Androids gains are mostly at the low end of the market with new smartphone buyers. However, in the high end specifically, the large screened phones are where their growth is in that segment. It's not unreasonable to think that some (many) of those buyers would consider a larger iPhone instead.
This is exactly right. Only in stagnant markets does market share really matter. In that case the competitors are fighting over slices of a pie that isn't growing. I have heard nobody say that the smartphone market is stagnant. Market share is steps removed from a useful number, like unit sales growth.
Thankfully Tim Cook isn't stupid enough to try and compete on market share in a race to the bottom. Apple needs to be "affordable luxury" and an aspirational brand. At MacWorld 1998 in New York Steve Jobs said Apple had three unique assets that they could utilize to go after the consumer market: brand, design and simplicity. These three things haven't really changed and I think Apple needs laser focus on them more than ever. There's a reason Apple hired Angela Ahrendts and the former CEO of fashion house YSL.
http://youtu.be/zFbve2zWsPQ
http://youtu.be/zFbve2zWsPQ
Same Statistics and different spins..
http://9to5google.com/2014/04/28/android-makes-8-percent-year-on-year-gains-in-usa-china-in-q1/
http://mobilemoo.com/consumer-corne...rly-equal-feature-phones-samsung-king-of-all/
http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/28/kantar-phone-share-q1-2014/?ncid=rss_truncated
Just interesting... Nobody is lying.. but everybody spins it in a way that suits them..
http://9to5google.com/2014/04/28/android-makes-8-percent-year-on-year-gains-in-usa-china-in-q1/
http://mobilemoo.com/consumer-corne...rly-equal-feature-phones-samsung-king-of-all/
http://www.engadget.com/2014/04/28/kantar-phone-share-q1-2014/?ncid=rss_truncated
Just interesting... Nobody is lying.. but everybody spins it in a way that suits them..
Three of us are making essentially the same point. All of this discussion over market share is lacking in useful context. It's essentially meaningless.
Seeing people with a 6.3 Samsung makes me laugh, but my statement about "choice is good" is based on the fact that not everybody has the same needs or wants.
So, if one can buy the 5S size phone OR a larger iPhone theoretically that opens the door for Apple to sell more iPhones.
I bet there are also iPhone users who claim never to want a bigger phone who will switch once they get to hold one.
Not really sure what this is all about!!
Is it iPhone supposed to sell more then all hundreds of models of Android devices? Because I don't know any single phone maker who sells more phones then Apple!
Our IT guys said that Apple just isn't interested in working together with them to make things work, and is also too expensive on a per-handset basis compared to e.g. Nokia.
Build quality was nice, but software-wise it was a nightmare. Maybe I have become very much used to iOS, but I never had similar problems working with Android. It was just a lot of little things that bothered me. There was no task manager, the App store was very limited in terms of app amounts and even more so in terms of quality. Navigation and google maps didn't integrate well. I so often got stuck in an app, not knowing what to press to get out or make it work. I truly think it was worse than the iOS 1.0. I know people will come down on me saying that Windows Phone is a new OS, well I don't buy that. They have had 7 years to look at how other OS-es work and plenty of experience in the company with software development. Moreover, Microsoft was already on the market with a mobile OS more than 15 years ago.
It is a while ago, but I gave it an honest try, but was so frustrated that I opted to pay out of my own pocket to use my iPhone at work.
well i felt it was a very badly chosen word since apple is certainly not a little mom and pop store competing against the industry. i dont care much for these asterisks in every sales comparison where apple is losing %. apple choses how it plays this game and an obvious benefit is the lack of defragmentation in their market. you can never have it both ways.[/QUOTE]