If it wasn't for Apple we'd still be using this... Nokia N87 dual slider, cancelled prototype because of Apple.
Wow - those buttons - I get confused just looking at them...
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Apple Tops Nokia to Become World's Top Smartphone Vendor
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Wow - those buttons - I get confused just looking at them...
I love my iPhone 3GS and will buy the next release this year...unless the Droids are far better (price, features, cell carrier availability, etc.) this Fall.
But folks...come on....the iPhone is not a phone and never was. It's a handheld computer that just also happens to act as a phone. Ditto for the Blackberry and Droid.
I can't speak for the other manufacturers out there.
All this being said above, the true cell phones out there have been quickly losing to "smart" phones over the past 2 years.
A reason why no single Droid manufacturer has surpassed Apple in sales is likely due to iPhone being out for 4+ years while Droids have been out for 2 (if that).
But folks...come on....the iPhone is not a phone and never was. It's a handheld computer that just also happens to act as a phone.
Ditto for the Blackberry and Droid.I can't speak for the other manufacturers out there.
All this being said above, the true cell phones out there have been quickly losing to "smart" phones over the past 2 years.
A reason why no single Droid manufacturer has surpassed Apple in sales is likely due to iPhone being out for 4+ years while Droids have been out for 2 (if that).
They were trying to copy Handspring/PalmOS Treo button configuration, which at one time was the top selling smartphone in the U.S.
None of those companies turned out to be forward thinking enough.
Good for Apple, they never cease to amaze us with these great feats
Now Nokia needs to step it up a bit and innovate for them to be competitive again
Now Nokia needs to step it up a bit and innovate for them to be competitive again
Clearly you have no idea about Nokia products. Nokia been pumping out concepts and eventually cancelling them way before iPhone came. Nokia didn't cancel any phones because of iPhone, they cancelled them because they didn't fit in. Do you know how many phone Nokia cancels each and every year? And that's not because of Apple.
And now that I've read the article, it's smartphone shipments. Given that Nokia has tons of feature phones, they still remain as #1 mobile phone company. Not smartphone though, that is because Symbian was scrapped from smartphones and N8 was the last smartphone. There were no new smartphones after N8, except E7 which is the same thing. I would like to see statistics of total shipments of phones.
But anyway, congrats to Apple. This was inevitable I guess, given that Nokia is completely changing their strategy.
As it is for every manufacturer. Except in Apple's case, there are very few sales outside the major partners, who do report back to Apple. In the case of Nokia, there are probably tons of unsold phones at Bob's Emporium, or even floating through the channel. The point is, whatever phenomenum is causing over-reporting of channel sales, the phenomenum is going to be much less signficant for an extremely hot product than more a slower-moving one. So, relative to Nokia, your observation leads to the fact that Apple is probably doing better than has been reported.
Well, channel-stuffing is illegal. It's perfectly okay to place inventory
in the channel, but it's fraudulent to account for that as a sale if it's not likely to be sold. I'm not exactly sure what is considered "over the line", but it's likely that Apple is erring on the conservative side, because being forced by the SEC to restate earnings due to channel-stuffing would obliterate Apple stock value.
What is considered a "smartphone"? Nokia has been making cellular phones from awhile, and I have always thought their designs looked pretty smart...
Would the 5160 be considered a "smartphone"?
This was my first cellphone, I had this one in 1998.
Would the 5160 be considered a "smartphone"?
This was my first cellphone, I had this one in 1998.
Again those are only Apple's channels. As soon as it leaves their warehouse they have no way to count them. They could be in inventory at one of the carriers.
Fact that Apple is only telling you those numbers means that they are hiding the real ones. Apple could get a pretty good count on sells by just looking at activation on iTunes. Have the IMEI numbers counted on first activation just like Google does with Android phones and you can get an exact number.
For example Google can release an exact number for Google handsets and I am willing bet they could give an exact break down by model if they wanted to.
Apple could do it as well if they choose. Now yes your numbers can give a rough idea but not exact and have a lot of room to play in them. They only can get what carrier choose to report back to them.
Knight and Kdarling are right.
Either way the numbers are impressive. No one is discounting that. 20 million iPhones is very impressive. It was only a few years ago that 20 mil total number of smart phones sold in a year was though to be insane. now there are 20 mil smart phones phones activated in under a month (android apple, BB, Palm, WP7 ect)
As soon as the disturber pays Apple for the phones they can count it as sold. Apple has their money. Does not matter if it is sitting in disturbers inventory. It been sold as far as Apple is concerned.
Now if it is in Apple warehouse, and said company promised to buy them but has not taken delivory it is still in the channel and can not stuff it.
But they did not say moved they said sold. From the transcript of the earnings call:
From the report itself:
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/07/19Apple-Reports-Third-Quarter-Results.html
Apple is not playing the same game as everyone else because they do not beed to manipulate their numbers to keep the shareholders from bailing. I think it means exactly what it says. At the start of the quarter they had 5.2 million iPhones in the channel, during the quarter 20.34million iPhones moved through the channel and went to consumers, and at the end of the quarter they had 5.9million iPhones in the channel.
It only seems confusing because companies like Samsung and Motorola manipulate their numbers so much, it is hard to tell what it is going on.
I am sure Apple has nothing to do with Apple becoming the number 1 smartphone vendor in the world.
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What I am saying is that they would be successful, but not number one, if they hadn't been given the spot.
Also, Samsung still has not reported. Apple may be number two, in fact.
"Tech" changed long before the launch of the iPhone, in fact multi-sided platforms have ruled technology for decades, with the effects of digitalization being almost as old. Surely one can still talk about the emergence of a post-pc paradigm, in which Apple has a leading role, but lets stay true to history, shall we?
One thing is certain though, we live in an exciting age. Now with Apps as an emerging industry asset it will definitely be interesting to see where the evolution of technology takes us next. By the looks of it Apps alone wont be able to provide for sustainable competitive advantage, thus, the battle is far from over. Exciting indeed.
What I don't understand is how can they use the term sold, and then give the exact number in channel inventory, if they can't keep track of when the end user buys them ? I don't know how it works in other countries, but last time I checked, here in the good ole US of A, sold means sold to end user. Especially when they can give the number that's in inventory.
Maybe they should have just said sales were "smooth."
sold means Apple sold them to lets say AT&T, Best buy ect hell even their own Apple stores those to Apple are their end users in this case. We are end users for like Best Buy but not Apple manufacturing division. You are getting confused with what seem logical compared to what it really means. 2 very different things.
Remember Apple does not know the exact inventory of what is in AT&T, Best Buy and so on. And those places are not going to want to hand that exact number back to Apple.
I remember steve putting up the stats for the smartphone industry during the launch and said "we want.. 10%" little did he know Nokia were just gonna sit still and watch during the next few years.
theregister.com has some more numbers. Nokia didn't only drop behind Apple, they dropped behind Samsung as well. And according to theregister, they had a profit margin of -4.5%. That's a minus. In other words, every single customer buying a Nokia phone actually cost the company money
Ever heard of economies of scale?
Apple aimed for 1% of the global market. Not the smart phone market, the overall mobile market. Apple are no where near 20% of the global market. Last i heard (spring 2011) they accounted for 5% of shipped units globally.
Read above. Nokias share of the global market is still 4-5 times as large. As Apple is shooting for a specific segment of the market (one where hugh premiums are possible) i doubt this fact bothers Apple very much though.
Bigger is a two-edged sword in platform environments. As apps become commoditized developers experience margin-pressure, making new developments on said platform less interesting. Conversely, smaller ecosystems have less cut-throat competition allowing for bigger margins making these options more interesting for developers.
Further, large ecosystems suffer from issues related to information overflow etc. But that can at least be addressed, somewhat, through clever design.
As hinted in my post above it is also likely that applications in a near future in most respects will be a de facto industry asset (i.e., accessible to "all" players). In support for the hypothesis we have the growth data from competing ecosystems, the effect highlighted above, and the emergence of HTML5 and dev. tools that allow for (pseudo-) platform independence to name a few.
As already explained in the thread the drop has logical explanations, and before the drop Nokia were doing surprisingly well in the smart phone segment, matching Apples speed of growth in real numbers. Further, theres a key distinction between being able to "capitalize" on a growing market and grabbing a large share of it. A 99% market share does you little good if you dont make any money out of your units.
You, sir, need to learn the difference between MSFT and WP7. It is possible for WP7 to gain traction even if MSFT loses market share, as MSFT has more offerings than WP7 in the market.
Might be due to the ambiguous nature of "smart phone" concept. Different definitions would lead to difference in numbers for obvious reasons.
And Apple is able to profit so well much, if not mainly, due to their strong ecosystem. But no, software based platforms, and platform-based business strategies are hardly new.
But what does channel inventory mean then if Apple is reporting units sold AND inventory in the channel (aka currently unsold)?
I guess he's trying to say Apple is clearly lying about the numbers and trying to hide something.
Apple can count it as sold when it's sold, for example to a distributor, and that distributor has to pay. If for example AT&T suddenly ordered 50 million iPhones that they have no chance to sell to end users, then Apple can count this as a sale at the point where AT&T is legally committed to pay Apple. Illegal channel stuffing would be happening if Apple signed a contract with AT&T for delivery of 50 million iPhones, giving AT&T the right to return them if they can't sell them; and if Apple counted those as "sold".
Of course Apple would have to tell stockholders that AT&T still has 48 million iPhones in a warehouse and is very unlikely to order any more for the next ffew years.
Apple can count the channel inventory as sold because it is sold by Apple (I think they can't count phones at Apple stores as sold), but if there is excessive channel inventory, then distributors will not buy any more until the inventory is more normal.
How do you know they aren't doing that!? Apple knows how many they shipped and how many they activated... they could then figure out how many are still in the channel and how many were sold.
So you know without a certainty of doubt that Google is only counting brand new activations and their numbers are accurate? Even though there may still be a lot of Android devices sold that haven't yet been activated.
You're also going to assume that Apple is not looking at activations and just making up numbers to hide something?
That's ridiculous.
I'm pretty sure Apple has a better handle on inventory than you think is possible - they are VERY good at keeping inventory within a certain range. In fact it is possible to gauge sell through rates by how many units are being reordered by a partner. AT&T doesn't have to tell Apple how many they sold, Apple can guesstimate because they know how many they sent the first time and how many more were ordered.
Anyone who knows anything about inventory managment, knows you can derive numbers from it and see what's happening.
It's not so much Apple 'topping' Nokia as Nokia committing suicide.
Just look at what happened to Nokia's sales after they announced they were switching to Windows Phone. It's not Apple's efforts that have made them No.1, it's Nokia's stupidity.
Carriers stopped stocking the now obsolete nokia smartphones that had been selling relatively ok the month before.
Consumers stopped buying nokia phones entirely, even the dumb phones because rightly or wrongly, store staff were warning them off of Nokias.
Developers stopped developing for Symbian/MeeGo because they'd be wasting their time.
Q3 and Q4 are going to be another bloodbath for Nokia. They only did relatively ok in Q2 because Apple finally paid them for their IP. Nokia would have lost closer to a billion if not for the payment from Apple.
Such a pity when they've got the Nokia N9 jumping about in the background. Could it have saved them? Probably not but jeez it'd be going down in glory instead of death by Microsoft.
Just look at what happened to Nokia's sales after they announced they were switching to Windows Phone. It's not Apple's efforts that have made them No.1, it's Nokia's stupidity.
Carriers stopped stocking the now obsolete nokia smartphones that had been selling relatively ok the month before.
Consumers stopped buying nokia phones entirely, even the dumb phones because rightly or wrongly, store staff were warning them off of Nokias.
Developers stopped developing for Symbian/MeeGo because they'd be wasting their time.
Q3 and Q4 are going to be another bloodbath for Nokia. They only did relatively ok in Q2 because Apple finally paid them for their IP. Nokia would have lost closer to a billion if not for the payment from Apple.
Such a pity when they've got the Nokia N9 jumping about in the background. Could it have saved them? Probably not but jeez it'd be going down in glory instead of death by Microsoft.
They have a come back ready
I know a lot of you cant hear this without dying a little inside, but Nokia WILL be back on top once the Windows Phones are out. There is this place out there called ....the rest of the world.
And they like Nokia, they want these phones and once they see this one in a friends hand . Nokia will be selling like hotcakes !
I know a lot of you cant hear this without dying a little inside, but Nokia WILL be back on top once the Windows Phones are out. There is this place out there called ....the rest of the world.
And they like Nokia, they want these phones and once they see this one in a friends hand . Nokia will be selling like hotcakes !