Apple Ships More Smartphones Annually Than Samsung for First Time

[Michael Scrip]

Even despite selling so many iPhones, the market is saturated.

Yes... the "market is saturated" if you're saying everyone who wants an iPhone already has an iPhone. But someday they will buy another iPhone. People won't keep their current iPhone for the rest of their lives.

You could say the market for shoes is saturated because everyone already has a pair of shoes. They probably own multiple pairs of shoes.

And yet... there are 18 shoe stores in my town. Because, at some point, they will need to buy another pair of shoes.

 

[Abazigal]

Hilarious that people here see this as some sort of victory for Apple and doom and gloom for Android.

The numbers still speak for themselves: Android phone shipments at 932M units, vs Apple at 234M. That's about 4X more Android phones shipped than Apple.

I have both and use both and while I prefer iPhone, some Android phone hardware is simply better.

Apple (one company) may never be able to outsell every other Android OEM combined (I will be very surprised if they can), and that's perfectly all right. I posed this question here 10 years ago, and I will ask it to everyone here again - would you rather have Apple's profits, or Android's market share?

Apple continues to command the lion's share of the profits in the smartphone market. That and their ecosystem means that they can continue to earn from people using Apple products, even if they never buy another Apple device for a couple more years. App purchases, service subscriptions, even Apple Pay all generate revenue for Apple. It's a literal money-printing machine that ensures Apple will continue to stick around for the long term.

Android OEMs have no such advantage. The device is essentially a liability the moment it's sold (depending on how long they are expected to support it for), and they make no money from it afterwards. You really have to wonder how long they can continue this profitless endeavour.

 

[jaehaerys48]

It's hilarious that you think that. Apple does not discount directly but does discount through third parties. You can readily get an iPhone for $99-$200 or free through phone carriers - even in the prepaid market where the bulk of cheap phones sell from. Even Apple knows not everyone needs a high end phone and has a budget model and keeps old models around at a discount - with third party resellers getting Apple subsidized discounts.

Anyone that wants an iPhone can have one - but not everyone wants a dumbed down OS or phone that is consistently behind in features or so restrictive. I miss a bunch of things about Android - but the reason I use a lesser OS is the intergration with my other Apple products by and large. There are valid reasons why Android users hate IOS - but most IOS users just don't have any way to know better beacsue they don't use Android and never have.

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Other countries exist besides the US and Android is often much more price competitive in them.

 

[Digital Dude]

I’m kind of interested in the new S24 ultra, and I’m tempted to give it a whirl. While I have no complaints with the iPhone, I’m just kind of bored and want to try something different. 🥱

 

[svish]

Very good for Apple. Both Apple and Samsung make very good phones.

 

[Velli]

Who knows. If you go by "preliminary data" it dropped 0.7% which is definitely within a margin of error, especially since this "preliminary data" is a guess, at best.

Curious why you want Samsung to fail so bad? You think no competition is a good thing?

No, I’m happy to have other companies compete with Apple. There are many reasons why I dislike Samsung (and certain other companies), most of which isn’t related to products that compete with Apple. But I’m sure there are people with bad stories about Apple or other of my favourite companies too, so listing the examples of being burned by buying Samsung, isn’t convincing many people. But costing me 6000 Euro for a product that I got 3 months of use out of over the 3 years I owned it, did not help. Discontinuing service parts for products literally still on sale. Having parts available, but at 3x the price of the product. Promising upgradable Smart TV’s and then completely running away from the promise (how are they not sued to hell for that?)

Just the general fact that so many people think they are a High end brand, that makes quality products.

I have been a dealer of Samsung products many years ago, so I have some high number experience to back this up, I’m not just a burned customer (but also that). If you are one day over warranty, and your product fails, Samsung will not give a ****.

Phones may be the one area where there might be reasons to buy one of their products, I don’t know - and don’t care. They are just one of the companies that I refuse to support. And I always laugh when Samsung owners try to pursuade me that Apple are crooks, and that there are all sorts of moral reasons not to support Apple, while Samsungs chairman has literally been in jail. Calling out Apple for “built to fail”, while Samsung is the one designing TV’s that provably have capacitors designed to fail, and repeatedly have stopped software support for 3 year old products.

I’ll stop now - but, you asked…