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Apple Surpassed Samsung as World's Largest Smartphone Maker in Fourth Quarter

People are starting to wake up to the gimmicks, people don't want bloat, below par software, battery drain, overheating issues, camera lag, and cartoonish photos.

You want smartphones done right there is only one company for that. 🍎👑
 
rp2011 said:
Good news on the face of it. But concerning too if the trend continues too far, with antitrust issues and oversaturation.
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I7guy said:
Apple is becoming a monopoly at the high end? Because other manufacturers are failing to innovate and hence sell phones?
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Apple can easily prevent itself from becoming the dominant or monopoly vendor in the mobile segment merely by raising prices until their market share stays just below the defining benchmark for that market (50% or whatever, IANAL). An excellent position to be in for both anti-trust prevention and shareholder returns.
 
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firewood said:
Apple can easily prevent itself from becoming the dominant or monopoly vendor in the mobile segment merely by raising prices until their market share stays just below the defining benchmark for that market (50% or whatever, IANAL). An excellent position to be in for both anti-trust prevention and shareholder returns.
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US market share or worldwide market share.

Even if discussing the US and with the information above, I still do not believe the Apple has more than a 50% share.
 
firewood said:
Apple can easily prevent itself from becoming the dominant or monopoly vendor in the mobile segment merely by raising prices until their market share stays just below the defining benchmark for that market (50% or whatever, IANAL). An excellent position to be in for both anti-trust prevention and shareholder returns.
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Yeah, and also, Android has become a commodity handset at such affordable price points that it will probably always retain it’s dominant player. And who knows whether Samsung will hang in there in such a cut throat market.
 
I7guy said:
Apple is becoming a monopoly at the high end? Because other manufacturers are failing to innovate and hence sell phones?
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Whatever the cause is, what worries me is a monopoly. The tech industry needs healthy competition, otherwise it stagnates. We've seen it many times before. Also I'm not comfortable with a single corporation controlling the market. I want Android to succeed in the high-end, so Apple needs to continue innovating and keep sane prices.
 
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LFC2020 said:
People are starting to wake up to the gimmicks, people don't want bloat, below par software, battery drain, overheating issues, camera lag, and cartoonish photos.

You want smartphones done right there is only one company for that. 🍎👑
Click to expand...
The fact that you believe flagship Android devices has those things is hilarious.
 
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dabi said:
Whatever the cause is, what worries me is a monopoly. The tech industry needs healthy competition, otherwise it stagnates. We've seen it many times before. Also I'm not comfortable with a single corporation controlling the market. I want Android to succeed in the high-end, so Apple needs to continue innovating and keep sane prices.
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Without Samsung we'd be stuck on 3.5". Monopolies are bad. Just imagine Intel without AMD.
 
dabi said:
Whatever the cause is, what worries me is a monopoly. The tech industry needs healthy competition, otherwise it stagnates. We've seen it many times before. Also I'm not comfortable with a single corporation controlling the market. I want Android to succeed in the high-end, so Apple needs to continue innovating and keep sane prices.
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Can’t force people to buy a product they don’t want. Monopoly by the way is a legal definition.
 
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dabi said:
Whatever the cause is, what worries me is a monopoly. The tech industry needs healthy competition, otherwise it stagnates. We've seen it many times before. Also I'm not comfortable with a single corporation controlling the market. I want Android to succeed in the high-end, so Apple needs to continue innovating and keep sane prices.
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Can we please stop using the word "monopoly" when talking about Apple and the iPhone?

Yes... Apple sold the most smartphones in the world last quarter.

BUT... they were only 20% of the market. So for every one phone Apple sold... there were four phones sold by the rest of the market.

In other words... while Apple sold 80 million phones last quarter... there were 300 million phones not sold by Apple.

That doesn't sound like an Apple/iPhone monopoly to me.

Besides... where was all this talk of monopoly when Samsung was the leading smartphone maker for the last 5 years? Nobody accused Samsung of "controlling the market" or monopoly abuse. They just happened to sell the most phones during a quarter or during a year.

Next quarter Samsung could be #1 again. Or it could be Xiaomi. Or Huawei. Or maybe Apple.

Being #1 doesn't make you a monopoly. It's just a report card at the end of the period.

I don't hear anyone shouting monopoly about Volkswagen selling the most cars last year... or Toyota the year before...

:rolleyes:
 
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dabi said:
Whatever the cause is, what worries me is a monopoly. The tech industry needs healthy competition, otherwise it stagnates. We've seen it many times before. Also I'm not comfortable with a single corporation controlling the market. I want Android to succeed in the high-end, so Apple needs to continue innovating and keep sane prices.
Click to expand...

It is what it is.
 
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