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Apple's App Store Still Number One in Revenue Despite Google Play Growth
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Jesus dude. By what metric should Apple be judged to be a successful company then?
Apparently, it's not number of products sold.
Fine. Profit? Apparently not.
Quit drinking the koolaide. They're in business to make profits. They're not doing super hot at the moment. Just because you like your iPhone a lot doesn't make that not true.
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Last year the same thing was true but apple was making over 70 percent of the profits, but let's ignore that and pretend like Apple isn't in trouble.
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I'm not saying they're going anywhere but they could be holding their position better than they are obviously. Customers are flocking to Samsung for a reason.
Curious, are you basing this quote on 99.99% free apps on both platforms, or do you purchase apps regularly?
I have yet to see an Android app that was at all tempting vs what's on iOS.
The problem isn't your metrics, it's your ability to put those metrics in a reasonable context. Somehow, by your analysis, better than everyone else is "not doing super hot at the moment."
If I was a pie collector, and my goal was to collect as much pie as possible, and last year I had 74 percent of the pie and every other collector had 26 percent of the pie I'm doing pretty damn well.
This year if I have 54 percent of the pie I'm still doing better than everybody else, but comparatively speaking and I'm not doing nearly as well as I was a year ago.
You can tell me that's devoid of context and doesn't mean anything, I'm free to think otherwise.
I'm also surprised by the people that keep saying this "doesn't matter". If it doesn't matter, why are people posting in a forum topic about smart phone company revenue? Simply don't post if you aren't interested in discussing these things, it's pretty simple!
Comparatively speaking. When your only context is record highs, all comparisons come up short.
I didn't say either of those things. I suppose it's easier to argue when you take everything to the extreme.
The Japanese phones have always been best in world, and devised their own OS and mobile internet (imode, since faded). iPhone and Android are about equal to Japanese phone OSes, but becuase those phones are local are still very popular.
My Japanese friends tell me the iPhone is very popular, but that Samsung products are somewhat disliked (they too see Samsung as a stealer of tech).
To see such a high use of Android in Japan makes me thing the OS is being adopted for Japanese phones. I need to ask whats the latest.
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...but I hear NTT is slowly losing customers, while iPhone carrying companies are gaining...
It isn't just record highs though. Apple's share of smartphone profits had been in the 70's for several quarters and has been consistently that high.
Consistently? Apple first hit 50% share in smartphone operating profits in mid-2011. Which fits my theory that FY2012 was simply a massive year for Apple, making YOY comparisons to record highs difficult.
Nope. That's only the share among those 8 vendors.
From the source for that article:
http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Screen-Shot-2012-02-03-at-2-3-12.38.01-PM.png
Apple does reach 50% in Q4 2010, but doesn't exceed it significantly until mid 2011 according to this source.
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Are you suggesting that those 8 vendors aren't pretty much representative of the smartphone market? What percentage of units sold do you think the "others" had at that point? I'm thinking it's basically nil.
Now keep drawing the line on that chart. By Q2 2011 share of profits was at 60 percent and continued to go higher through 2012. Now they're trailing off.
This is not representative of a single outlier quarter throwing things off as you suggested.
If they were in the mid 50's and then suddenly spiked to 70 and then back again you'd have a better point.
Well, expect for the fact that the same source disagrees with your claim, as I posted.
Which is exactly what I claimed.
I suggested FY2012 was the outlier. AKA the iPhone 4S. Not a single quarter.
Except that's exactly what happened.
I have purchased roughly the same amount of apps on each platform, though only two were for the same purpose.
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Why is it funny? Because you are unable to see that Apple is trying to nanny you? Because you think Apple's 'curating' is actually noble?
They reject apps and don't tell the developers why. They allow apps that get them the most possible money, not apps that are of the highest quality.
Remember that minor hitch a little while ago with the in-app purchases? Man, good thing Apple's god-like curation prevented that!
Oh wait.
apple should also add new apps more aggressively just like google, this way they can also grow their app store revenue.
I use both markets, use free stuff in both, pay for stuff in both, it's just that apple makes it easier for me to buy gift cards then google does. Google seems to centered on the local US market.
For some reason I don't really trust google with my CC details... I figure they know enough about me without needing my credit card too. (Paranoid I guess
For some reason I don't really trust google with my CC details... I figure they know enough about me without needing my credit card too. (Paranoid I guess
I suggested FY2012 was the outlier. AKA the iPhone 4S. Not a single quarter.
Except that's exactly what happened.
Oh, we have a different definition of suddenly apparently.
I think an entire year of operation (AKA 25 percent of the time the modern iPhone has been on sale) is a significant period of time to have those type of profits in a market as fluid and heavily competitive as the smartphone market.
The original poster is correct that referring to percentage growth can be misleading. When comparing percentage, taking into the account the denominator is crucial to data analysis.
For example, a company having $100M in sales might experience a 50% growth to $150M, while the company having with a $1,000M might have only a 10% growth to $1,100. The smaller percentage actually has twice the dollar growth.
The headline was selected to be sensational, not informative.
Products sold: Apple is #2 in the number of smartphones sold. In fact... they sell 2.5 time more phones than the #3 smartphone vendor. It's also worth noting that Apple's phones start at $450... so they're not selling a bunch of cheap junk. There are plenty of cheap phones out in the world... which tend to sell more units because of price. But for Apple to be the #2 smartphone vendor and only sell mid to high-end phones... that's pretty good.
Profit: Apple makes billions and billions of dollars. Has it gone down compared to another quarter? Sure. But that happens from time to time. It happens to ALL companies. But Apple remains a profitable company.
They're not doing super hot at the moment: You know some companies actually post a loss, right? Or who have to take a write-down for millions of units of unsold inventory?
There are only two companies worth a damn right now in the mobile market... Apple and Samsung. But there are DOZENS of companies in that market.
So for Apple to be one of those companies, and making billions of dollars, all while selling plenty of units... I say Apple is doing super hot.
No problem! My ongoing theory is that the iPhone 4S was released to a perfect storm of market conditions. Huge margins, pent up demand from the extra long cycle of the iPhone 4, correction of the antenna issue, doubling the amount of potential customers by adding new carriers, no significant competition for customers to focus on, etc. Not something that's easy to replicate.
But this case is not a company that has a 10:1 advantage, but a 2.3:1 so the 15% growth and the 67% means something.
You can do the math
Number 2, with 20 percent market share. Hey, I finished second in the race! Never mind that I took 10 minutes longer than the first guy right?
It's gone down compared to another YEAR.
Sure, Apple's doing fine until such a time that it takes a huge loss.
Yes, you're correct that it's a Coke and Pepsi situation with Apple and Samsung right now which is good for both of them, but Coke should still be worried when Pepsi is growing at a huge rate and Coke sales are slowing at the exact same time.
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Yeah, good points all around. I still think it'll be interesting to see what happens in China once Apple finally gets on China Telcom.
So you should just ignore Android's growth? Pretend there is no gain?
Again, pretty sure that's the attitude that Microsoft had a few years ago.
If there were more pies in total this year... your 54% could actually be more pies than the 74% you collected last year.
So while the percentage went down... you actually have more pies. Isn't that what you want?
Look man... I understand what you're saying... that Apple had 74% of the profits in the smartphone market and now they only have 54%
But you're looking at it like Apple did something wrong. They didn't.
The smartphone market is HUGE. Worldwide smartphone usage is at an all time high.
There are dozens of companies in the smartphone market now... and those companies are making money in the smartphone market.
And as a result... that lowers Apple's percentage of the profit.
But that's not Apple's fault.