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I have looked at post 269, and there's a serious problem with that method: taking positive profits and negative losses as two separate totals falls apart as soon as you realize that each company may have both types internally and at many reporting levels. Using your second example but splitting Samsung into two reporting divisions, one very profitable and one slightly more unprofitable, gives the same industry sum but quite different percentages:

Apple makes $10
Samsung A makes $1000000
Samsung B loses $1000010
HTC loses $20
-----------------
Sum -$20

Apple made 10/(10+1000000) = 0.001% of the industry profits?
Samsung A made 1000000/(10+1000000) = 99.999% of the industry profits?
Samsung B had 1000010/(10+1000000) = 99.998% of the industry losses?
HTC had 20/(10+1000000) = 0.002% of the industry losses?

If this were a useful method, you have to wonder why companies don't keep track of and report separate total profits and total losses.
I’m going to close this out as we’re going round in circles. The information given in the title piece in this thread did NOT split each company out into separate divisions, you did. Which just goes to show how easy it is to make statistics say what you want them to.
You cannot, I repeat cannot have more than 100% of a finite amount. You can make figures say you have but it has NOT happened.
Don't be offended if I don't reply to this anymore.
 
BS math used by an investment pump and dump web site. If you've invested based on the article you're already down consecutively the last few days since the article was put out.
 
I’m going to close this out as we’re going round in circles. The information given in the title piece in this thread did NOT split each company out into separate divisions, you did. Which just goes to show how easy it is to make statistics say what you want them to.
You cannot, I repeat cannot have more than 100% of a finite amount. You can make figures say you have but it has NOT happened.
Don't be offended if I don't reply to this anymore.

I understand where your confusion is coming from with the "profit" term, since the value is often called "profit (loss)" or "profit and loss". But in a report or spreadsheet column it's a single value, with losses as negative values (commonly written in parenthesis) so they can easily be summed. I've never seen the positive values summed separately from the negative ones, as you did in your examples.

I split one company in two to show why that separate-summing method doesn't work. If it did, companies would use it internally, but they don't. And of course you can have more than 100% of a finite amount if you have more than that amount, as in this case.
 
The issue here is that the iPhone market share is shrinking. So at some point it'll start to matter. It's just hard to determine when that is.

But I figure the math like this:

100% of Apple's 10% of the market spends $10
30% of Android's 90% of the market spending $10 ( a third of the Android market spending the same as Apple)

Market:100 people
Apple: 10
Android: 90
Apple 10 * $10 = $100
Android: 27 * $10 = $270

So, you better develop for both platforms, and Android has the most opportunity for growth.

Market share has to do with the size of the entire market at any given time. And that market is full of $100 Android phones sold in China and India. Sales of those cheap phones are going up... which causes their market share to go up... which is causing the iPhone's share to go down.

But that doesn't matter. Developers built apps for the iPhone when it barely had any market share at all. Remember when the App Store opened in 2008 ? The iPhone was severely behind Symbian... the platform with the majority of market share.

But developers still made apps for the iPhone.

Developers built apps for the iPhone when it had 2% market share, and 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, etc.

It didn't seem to matter what the iPhone's market share was... since it was always a big revenue generator for developers.

That's the thing developers are concerned with.... not the market share.

Again... developers built apps for the iPhone whether its market share was 2% or 20%

So whether it shrinks... or goes up... or stays the same... it'll still be a successful platform for developers.

But while you're so focused on the iPhone's market share... did you forget that there are over 600 million iPhones out in the world right now? And that Apple can sell 45-50 million iPhones every three months?

That's another number developers are interested in.

The total number of iPhones might stay around 600-700 million for many years to come. But that's PLENTY for developers to sell to.
 
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I haven't ignored anything, I've said we don't have facts only opinions and rumors. You made a false claim and are now trying to buttress it with a bunch of unsupportable caveats. Why are you still arguing a point that can be factually tested by looking at annual reports?
...

Apple does not disclose details where the R&D increases over the last few years were spent. In their annual report, or anywhere else.

People who get paid to do such research seem to be in general agreement that the R&D increases went largely to Project Titan, which was mismanaged and is now dead. If you have better information than they do, please share it. Otherwise, stop whining.
 
As an actual developer, working for a company that actually makes good money with iOS and Android apps, I can tell you that it isn't so. The number of Android users willing to part from their money is smaller. Not the percentage, but the absolute number.

Plus there is a bigger variation of devices in the Android world, creating more work. Right now, you can either write for iOS 7 and it works everywhere from iPhone 4 upwards, or you write for iOS 9 and it works everywhere from iPhone 4s upwards.

And excuse me, but if the iPhone has 10% market share and Android has 90%, then clearly iPhone has nine times more room for growth :)
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Are you serious claiming that Samsung's Note 7 debacle was just "bad luck"? And the fact that iPhones don't explode is due to luck?
Ahh... yes! Samsung debacle is bad luck on their part. What is your question exactly?
 
What's your investment? All those apps and movies and music you bought? How is Microsoft and Google and Samsung and Amazon any different? They all use DRM on everything except for music. You would have the exact same issue switching to or from any platform so don't blame Apple.

You're lumping all of Android together. Cheap Android devices being pumped into the third world don't count as far as marketshare because Apple doesn't compete in that space. The space they do compete in is the high end one and steal more from Samsung and Google than vice versa. Apple's rate of iOS adopters is continuing to grow, not contract like Android high end adoption.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/03/24/android-apple-switchers/#7b32f4e3977a

Again, you missed the point. I never said Android users didn't have the same issue. I am talking about my issue and many others in the same situation in the Apple Eco system. And that is the point, after 9 years in a it, it is a hard choice to switch unless we were willing to forgo the investment we made into that eco system. I never blamed Apple for it, but if you want to read into it that way, be my guess. I choose the iPhone 9 years ago because it was the best at the time and for a lot of years after that. And yes, I bought into the Apple Eco system along with it.

As for your article, please so something that is relevant to TODAY. This article was written in March 2015 on data from 4Q of 2014. Look at todays numbers. How about this article since you start spewing them.

https://dazeinfo.com/2016/08/17/apple-iphone-sales-android-us-china-report/
or this
http://www.idc.com/prodserv/smartphone-os-market-share.jsp

But you see, you want to think I am blaming Apple for the situation I am in. I never have and I never will, in the end it was I that choose to open my wallet for Apple, I was just making a statement about my situation and my thought that many others are in the same boat.
 
And your implication is that people who buy Apple products don't? What makes you think that the consumer who shops for an iPhone or iPad or MacBook Pro doesn't exercise the same degree of care in making his purchase, considering that they tend to cost more than the next best alternative?

I too do my fair share of research by watching early YouTube reviews and reading online coverage.

I did not imply that. I simply stated that I feel that it's the individual user/purchaser who assigns value to what is being purchased, not "the market" or companies, as you implied previously. I'm not making generalizations about Apple users.

And it's well within your right not to get an iPhone. That the iPhone has 12% market share shows that 88% of the world agreed with your sentiment in one way or another.

What that also means is that 12% of the world evidently felt that the iPhone represented the "best" smartphone for them, whatever that may mean to them. And 12% of the world's population is still a very large number in an absolute sense. Well enough to make Apple one of the biggest companies in the entire world, not forgetting that each iPhone sold this way is very expensive (and profitable).

Agreed. I did not deny that. But iPhone users love to attribute that 88% to cheapness, but even if only a 4th of those individuals that choose Android are not "cheap", it is still way more than Apple's 12%. People are not choosing Apple for a reason, which isn't always money. The reason being value, in the context I expressed previously.

The answer has always been right in front of you. The question is whether you have the heart for the truth and the will to see it.

First, Apple undeniably sells the greatest number of high-end smartphones, which is pretty much the only segment that is bringing in any sort of meaningful profit. Don't blame Apple for this. Blame the rest of the competition for not being to earn a single cent off the products they sell.

Second, there is no one absolute "best" smartphone, only a smartphone which best meets the individual user's needs. Refer to my earlier comment above about 12% iPhone market share being a huge enough number to make Apple immensely profitable and you have your answer.

Third, you are right that iOS is a monopoly, and that's besides the point. Blackberry ran proprietary software; that didn't stop the company from tanking because their products simply sucked. If the iPhone sucked, nobody would buy it, proprietary or not.

Last, I agree with you that the iPhone's biggest competitor is always the iPhone that came out before it, because they are just so good. Android is nowhere close to even becoming a viable competitor as far as I am concerned.

I think there's a lot of hyperbole and opinion in the above. However I can agree that Apple playing in the high-end market exclusively is a factor. This is a segment where people are accustomed of paying more for less (tangible benefits). A company name (Apple, Mercedes-Benz, etc) is assigned a high value component here. Certainly not for me. I would never buy a Mercedes when a Honda would do. Android devices far exceed the (overall) capabilities of iPhone. That is a fact, just like the new MBP is less capable than the one before.

Your numbers paint an oversimplified picture which fails to take many factors into account.

1) Piracy - the developer of Monument Valley estimated that over 90% of Android users who played his game downloaded it illegally. The iOS store is not free of piracy, but the incidence is much lower. What use is a huge install base if nobody is willing to pay for your app?

2) Not all Android phones are made equal. Lower end phones may not be capable of running more taxing software. That dramatically reduces your potential install base right there.

3) Effort - optimising for a few iOS devices with known specs vs having to optimise for the myriad of android devices out in the wild. Developers are making more money on Android with less effort.

4) Shrinking iPhone market share conveniently ignores the fact that the number of iPhone users is still increasing in an absolute sense. More than enough to sustain and support a thriving ecosystem of apps and accessories.

5) Market share doesn't necessarily mean install base. A recent article by stratechery pegs the number of Android devices in active use at 1 billion, and iOS at 600k. This means the active market share of iOS is closer to 40%, not the dismal 12% painted by analysts. So you will definitely have to rework all your numbers.

In short, developers will still release apps for Android. But unless the narrative changes dramatically overnight, they will continue to flock to where the money is by releasing apps for iOS first or exclusively, and ensuring that those apps remain the most optimised and the best in class.

As a happy iOS user, I cannot ask for anything more.

NONE of the above influenced my decision to purchase an iPhone or an alternative.

My point is that the average shopper doesn't look at all that either.

Let's face it, Apple has a lot of cachet. And there is a lot of muscle memory in the Apple fanbase. It's hard to break out from what's comfortable. Even my daughter wants an iPhone (upgrade, she uses a 4S), despite me showing her the things she won't be able to do with it that I can with my Note5. When I asked why an iPhone, she could not verbalize an answer. She just "wanted" it. But device vs device, as it what you can and cannot do with it, it's not even a contest. Where Apple wins is in the integration and ecosystem. Remove that (by not having a Mac), and the appeal drops, significantly.

How is it that the latest iPhone is the best device Apple has done (competes with itself, remember?) but less people are choosing to buy it? I know there's a LOT of factors (I won't go into), but I also believe that this is happening because more customers are starting putting greater value in what Apple doesn't offer, despite whatever quality (perceived or otherwise) Apple puts into their devices. Which is what led ME to leave them.

So, to me Apple's shrinking numbers support this. We'll see. All of this here is merely academic.
[doublepost=1478528763][/doublepost]
As an actual developer, working for a company that actually makes good money with iOS and Android apps, I can tell you that it isn't so. The number of Android users willing to part from their money is smaller. Not the percentage, but the absolute number.

I don't see how you can make that assertion outside of the product(s) that you/your company develop. Maybe I'm missing something.

Plus there is a bigger variation of devices in the Android world, creating more work. Right now, you can either write for iOS 7 and it works everywhere from iPhone 4 upwards, or you write for iOS 9 and it works everywhere from iPhone 4s upwards.

Can't argue with that. Cost vs benefit as it relates to effort must be taken into account. And Android fragmentation can be an issue, from a developer perspective. But I really doubt the major app developers (Netflix, etc) will stop developing for Android because "it's hard/expensive."

And excuse me, but if the iPhone has 10% market share and Android has 90%, then clearly iPhone has nine times more room for growth :)

Haha, yes.

I meant from the perspective of the target audience for developers, within the individual market segment at the "spender" level, but you can look at it your way too.
 
I can deal with this in three ways;
First, please look at the definition of the word profit using the dictionary on your Mac. To save you time I’ve done it for you……..;
profit |ˈprɒfɪt| noun1 a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something: record pre-tax profits | [mass noun] : his eyes brightened at the prospect of profit.
Next, Google……..;
profit
ˈprɒfɪt/
noun

  1. 1.
    a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something.
    "record pre-tax profits"
    synonyms: financial gain, gain, return(s), payback, dividend, interest, yield, surplus, excess;More

Finally, I’ve used a physical dictionary which obviously I can't prove. Now we can at least agree that there is only so much money available to buy goods. Out of that money profit is made. If I don’t take in ALL of that money I cannot have made 100% of it.
I go back to my earlier point - This is obfuscating details for the purpose of massaging/confusing financials.
The general definition of a word and the industry-specific definition can be different. I'm not a business major, but it's at least possible that, when used as business jargon, "profit" can be negative.
 
See, told you @kdarling understood math...

In your first example, there's nothing wrong with saying they had an infinite percentage of the industry profit. A little strange to read, for sure, but mathematically sound.

In your second example, the industry made a negative profit (loss), so Apple had a -50% share of the loss-- which sounds about right.

This isn't a new problem-- this has always been a challenge with relative measures. Ratios with small denominators are sensitive metrics. You hit a similar problem if I ask you to plot data on a log scale-- if you get non-positive numbers in there it blows up. That doesn't mean a log plot isn't a useful tool, it just means you need to understand what you're talking about and maybe reformulate it under certain conditions.

No, that demonstrates that he *doesn't* understand the math, and at the *very* most basic level.

Profit is Revenue minus costs.

the total revenue of the industry, minus the industry's total costs is the industry's profit.

If you ignore losses, then you end up with a situation where:
industry revenue = $100
industry costs = $90
industry profit = $75

You don't get to redefine words just because you don't like their actual meanings.
And yes, a loss *is* a negative profit.
[doublepost=1478534075][/doublepost]
Are you discussing total profit or mean profit? Profit is, by definition, positive. A "negative profit" is called a loss. No one can have 104% of total profit.

No *individual* can earn more than 100% profit of their own. In fact, by definition, *every* individual earns exactly 100% of their own profits.
An individual *can*, however, earn more than 100% of the profits earned by the *group*, if the rest of the group, as a whole earned *negative* profits (aka: losses).

This really isn't a complex concept. Its something people should have learned in grade school. Middle school at the latest.
 
Copy cat at discount, Samsung discovers its not pursuing quality. Realizes it's not commanding profit and lacks reserves to support R&D. And now it needs reserves and a quality process. This story is as much about Samsung's shrinking future as it is about Apple's sustainable quality model.
 
In your first example, there's nothing wrong with saying they had an infinite percentage of the industry profit. A little strange to read, for sure, but mathematically sound.

Divide by zero is anathema to a programmer :). Only for certain things does it make sense to treat divide by zero as infinity (such as when approaching zero, or charting a result).

In this case, with money, I would argue that it does not make sense. After all, one cannot say that a company made infinitely more than the sum total of zero dollars, and magically come out with $4,256,179 as the correct multiplication answer for infinity times zero! :D

MC6800 said:
If this were a useful method, you have to wonder why companies don't keep track of and report separate total profits and total losses.

Companies do just that with internal divisions. Samsung does not say that their semiconductor division made 150% of their profits. They say one division made 80% of their profit, and the other had a loss.

Likewise, when comparing different companies, it just makes a ton more sense to give the contribution of each company to the whole market, separating out profit and losses.

It really is not massaging figures-- it's standard accounting practice (and standard math, for that matter).

My first major was Bus Admin. And my brother's an Actuary. But nobody's talking about accounting methods here, despite the attempts to curve the conversation that way.

We're only talking about how it makes no sense from a clarity or understanding standpoint, to compare industry profits and losses by combining it all industry-wide.

In fact, I can't find anywhere that this has been done for any industry. Can you? It's apparently a cute idea that a market analyst starting doing just for smartphones in 2014, as clickbait headlines.

===============================
Example of how stupid it is #3:
===============================


Apple makes $10 (+$10)
Samsung loses $20 (-$20)
Others lose $10 (-$10)
---------------
Sum = -$20 total industry "profits"

Using that analyst's stupid method of presenting industry shares, Samsung... because their loss was equal to the industry sum total... mathematically made 100% of industry "profits", while poor Apple failed with -50%.

How on earth does that convey to anyone that Samsung LOST twice as much as Apple MADE in that example? Answer: it doesn't.

It's a very poor way to present this type of information. That's what we're saying.
 
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Here. Ima fix this, so that no one needs to argue over semantics any more. Here's the article from the top of this thread, corrected to use the 'there is no more than 100% of the profit' definition. Notice that the point of the article remains the same. Samsung tanked with the Note 7 recall, and Apple is the only one who made any money on smartphones in the third quarter of 2016, even though they only have 13.2% of the market share. Last year Apple made a mere 90% of the profit. See? The extra four points in the profit percentage have no actual bearing on the meaning of the article.

Apple Takes nearly 100% of All Smartphone Profits Following Galaxy Note 7 Recall

Apple accounted for nearly 100 percent of smartphone industry profits in the third quarter of this year, according to estimates published by BMO Capital Markets on Thursday.

Analyst Tim Long, quoted in the Investor's Business Daily, said Apple's staggering 99.1% percent profit share in Q3 2016 came largely as a result of significant losses posted by rival vendors including LG and HTC, and despite Apple continuing to shift fewer handsets year on year.

galaxy-s7-edge-iphone-7-plus.jpg


Based on units alone, Samsung accounted for 21.7 percent of all smartphones sold, with Apple coming in second with a 13.2 percent share. In terms of profits however, Samsung came a distant second to Apple, capturing only a 0.9 percent share.

Quote:
Samsung ceded market share in smartphone shipments to Apple and Chinese vendors in the third quarter because of its Galaxy Note 7 troubles, Long said. He expects further share loss by Samsung in the current quarter. Apple captured nearly 100% of smartphone industry profits for the first time, thanks in part to Samsung's weaker results, Long said.


If accurate, the estimates represent the first time Apple has achieved smartphone industry profits of 99.1% percent - an impressive number for a company owning only around 12 percent of the market.

According to the same report, Apple managed 90 percent profit share in the same quarter a year ago. However, this year Apple's iPhone 7 numbers were undoubtedly helped by Samsung's hugely damaging
Galaxy Note 7 recall and discontinuation, which effectively took the South Korean company out of this year's flagship smartphone race, indicating Apple's profit share is unlikely to be sustained in the long term.

Despite the impressive numbers, Apple's recent third quarter financial results reported its first full-year revenue decline for Apple since 2001, although Apple expects to return to revenue growth in the holiday season on the back of sales of the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.
 
Maths was never my strong point.

Could somebody explain this in simple terms? How it's calculated?

Unfortunately it doesn't make sense because it is inappropriate.

If company A makes a profit of $200 and company B makes a loss, breaks even or ceases to exist, the total profits are $200.

When a report states that a company makes profits to the order of 104 points per 100, you at least know that no matter how weak your own maths, you're better at it than the average* financial reporter.

*More appropriately, median.
 
Market share has to do with the size of the entire market at any given time. And that market is full of $100 Android phones sold in China and India. Sales of those cheap phones are going up... which causes their market share to go up... which is causing the iPhone's share to go down.

But that doesn't matter. Developers built apps for the iPhone when it barely had any market share at all. Remember when the App Store opened in 2008 ? The iPhone was severely behind Symbian... the platform with the majority of market share.

But developers still made apps for the iPhone.

Developers built apps for the iPhone when it had 2% market share, and 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, etc.

It didn't seem to matter what the iPhone's market share was... since it was always a big revenue generator for developers.

That's the thing developers are concerned with.... not the market share.

Again... developers built apps for the iPhone whether its market share was 2% or 20%

So whether it shrinks... or goes up... or stays the same... it'll still be a successful platform for developers.

But while you're so focused on the iPhone's market share... did you forget that there are over 600 million iPhones out in the world right now? And that Apple can sell 45-50 million iPhones every three months?

That's another number developers are interested in.

The total number of iPhones might stay around 600-700 million for many years to come. But that's PLENTY for developers to sell to.


Several issues with this logic.

Even when iPhone market share was low because of the App Store it was easier to make money developing for iPhone than for Symbian. Situation is very different now.

It's not just about the developers. With iPhone share being as low as it is, it affects Apple ability to do a lot of things: to update traffic data (most car drivers have Android phones now), maps etc. Also, all ad based apps and subscriptions services will favor Android heavily from now on.
 
Apple does not disclose details where the R&D increases over the last few years were spent. In their annual report, or anywhere else.

People who get paid to do such research seem to be in general agreement that the R&D increases went largely to Project Titan, which was mismanaged and is now dead. If you have better information than they do, please share it. Otherwise, stop whining.
You keep trying to make this about something else.
And yet another way is by reducing R&D costs, which is rather evident by the stagnant line of Apple products.
Apple has not reduced R&D spending. The annual reports bear that out. People paid to encourage stock trading said Apple was building a car, then said they aren't. That doesn't make those facts, it makes them rumors. Perhaps even believable ones. Which is fine, but it still has nothing to do with the statement that Apple has reduced R&D. They haven't.

I know you really want to make this about blind love or hatred of Apple rather than about simple measurable facts, but I'm very much focused on the facts here. Apple did not reduce their R&D spending, that's a fact. Apple may have begun and then scuttled a car project for whatever reasons, that's a rumor.

That I'm being accurate in describing what we know while you are first stating the opposite of a known fact and then trying to dodge behind rumors that you want to call facts says much more about how emotion is coloring your thinking than mine.
 
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Several issues with this logic.

Even when iPhone market share was low because of the App Store it was easier to make money developing for iPhone than for Symbian. Situation is very different now.

My point was... iPhone market share was ALWAYS kinda low.

But despite it being a relatively low number like 2% or 20% or 12%... it's been a well-performing platform.

Look at all it has achieved while NOT being the top platform.

It's not just about the developers. With iPhone share being as low as it is, it affects Apple ability to do a lot of things: to update traffic data (most car drivers have Android phones now), maps etc. Also, all ad based apps and subscriptions services will favor Android heavily from now on.

And that goes back to what I said about there being 600 million iPhones around the world.

All those iPhones are gathering plenty of data and serving up ads.

Yes... there aren't as many iPhones as there are Android phones... but there are more than enough.

In fact... there are more iPhones out in the world right now than there were 3 years ago or 5 years ago.

You can say that the iPhone's "share" of the broader smartphone sales market is shrinking... but you also have to admit that the iPhone's number of "active users" is as high as it's ever been.

Surely that's gotta count for something. :)
 
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No, that demonstrates that he *doesn't* understand the math, and at the *very* most basic level.
You're not really being fair to what @kdarling is saying here (I just realized I'm not sure of k's gender...).

k understands the math, and has shown as much. The point they're making is that under certain circumstances profit share calculations throw up some results that tend to hide the meaning of the numbers behind some rather esoteric mathematical considerations. In the examples they gave, I have to agree. -50% doesn't look like the kind of number you'd want attached to your name in an investment journal.

I still think the profit share metric is expressive for the type of discussion we're having here, and I think most of the situations he's using as examples are improbable and could be resolved by a good journalist using language to clarify.

Divide by zero is anathema to a programmer :). Only for certain things does it make sense to treat divide by zero as infinity (such as when approaching zero, or charting a result).

In this case, with money, I would argue that it does not make sense. After all, one cannot say that a company made infinitely more than the sum total of zero dollars, and magically come out with $4,256,179 as the correct multiplication answer for infinity times zero! :D
In truth, there's a lot of things about math that programmers don't like. Comparing real numbers for equality for example. Doesn't make those invalid mathematical concepts though.

I think there's something about this being money that has people wound up. I don't ever recall seeing people complain when it's stated that OLED has infinite contrast ratio-- which is also the result of a fraction with zero denominator.

The limit of $10/x as x approaches $0 from the right (decreasing industry profits) is infinity.
The limit of $10/x as x approaches $0 from the left (decreasing industry losses) is -infinity.

This aligns nicely with your stupid math #2 example where a negative percentage of an industry loss represents a profit.

It's worth pointing out that this infinity problem really only arrises when the total industry profits are zero to the penny which is only slightly more likely than Steve Jobs explaining that on the next earnings call.

For any profit we're likely to see we'll get a finite valued result. Still, that finite value may be absurdly large which I think is probably just as difficult to interpret even if a programmer is more comfortable with the result. When we get to the point that Apple has a billion percent of the profit, we can agree that different language should be employed.
Likewise, when comparing different companies, it just makes a ton more sense to give the contribution of each company to the whole market, separating out profit and losses.

My first major was Bus Admin. And my brother's an Actuary. But nobody's talking about accounting methods here, despite the attempts to curve the conversation that way.

We're only talking about how it makes no sense from a clarity or understanding standpoint, to compare industry profits and losses by combining it all industry-wide.

In fact, I can't find anywhere that this has been done for any industry. Can you? It's apparently a cute idea that a market analyst starting doing just for smartphones in 2014, as clickbait headlines.

===============================
Example of how stupid it is #3:
===============================


Apple makes $10 (+$10)
Samsung loses $20 (-$20)
Others lose $10 (-$10)
---------------
Sum = -$20 total industry "profits"

Using that analyst's stupid method of presenting industry shares, Samsung... because their loss was equal to the industry sum total... mathematically made 100% of industry "profits", while poor Apple failed with -50%.

How on earth does that convey to anyone that Samsung LOST twice as much as Apple MADE in that example? Answer: it doesn't.

It's a very poor way to present this type of information. That's what we're saying.
For one thing, it would be a whole lot less confusing if we didn't use different words for positive and negative profits. But we do. So the only way to keep things clear is to use that language consistently all the way through.

In your example 3, you're not using the proper language conventions. The industry showed a loss. Samsung made 100% of the loss, and Apple made -50% of the loss. Stated that way it's very clear that Samsung lost twice as much as Apple made.

If Apple made $1
Samsung lost $1B
Others lost $10B

Then Apple made 100% of the industry profits by your reckoning. The problem is that reporting that number sounds like Apple did really well and says nothing about the larger industry.

Different metrics express different things and hide others-- that doesn't make them invalid.
 
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Several issues with this logic.

Even when iPhone market share was low because of the App Store it was easier to make money developing for iPhone than for Symbian. Situation is very different now.

It's not just about the developers. With iPhone share being as low as it is, it affects Apple ability to do a lot of things: to update traffic data (most car drivers have Android phones now), maps etc. Also, all ad based apps and subscriptions services will favor Android heavily from now on.

The android App Store is welcome to take all the ad-supported apps away from the iOS App Store. I will stick with my paid apps, thank you very much.

The success of subscription based apps follows the same logic as paid apps. If fewer people are willing to pay $10 for an app on Android, what makes you think they will want to pay twice that amount a year, year after year?
 
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The android App Store is welcome to take all the ad-supported apps away from the iOS App Store. I will stick with my paid apps, thank you very much.

The success of subscription based apps follows the same logic as paid apps. If fewer people are willing to pay $10 for an app on Android, what makes you think they will want to pay twice that amount a year, year after year?


I was not very clear making my point. By subscription type apps I meant apps like NBA League Pass etc. Those apps are always free (but content is not). Obviously, in USA iOS is doing well for now, but abroad (and here in USA if iOS market share slips) the priority will be given to the dominant platform. We have already seen this with Mac computers before.
 
I was not very clear making my point. By subscription type apps I meant apps like NBA League Pass etc. Those apps are always free (but content is not). Obviously, in USA iOS is doing well for now, but abroad (and here in USA if iOS market share slips) the priority will be given to the dominant platform. We have already seen this with Mac computers before.

First, if iOS is profitable for developers, they will continue to develop for it. Second, when you say 'priority will be given to the dominant platform,' I think you are perhaps assuming that Android is the dominant platform. The thing is, which version of Android are you considering dominant? Which devices and form factors are dominant in Android usage? The thing about developing for iOS is that there are a very limited number of devices and form factors to anticipate, and there is an incredibly high rate of rapid adoption of the most recent version of iOS. Generically speaking, Android may be the dominant platform, but from the standpoint of developing apps and customized content, maybe not so much.
 
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