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Apple's Holiday Quarter iPad Sales Estimated to Hit Record 25 Million
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Thats one way of looking at the situation. Another way to look at it is that its been 6 years since Apple started selling smartphones and Q4 2013 is looking like a bumper holiday quarter for apple when it comes to phone sales. Most market students will look at this and say that the 4 inch form factor was anABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDING decision for apple given the rewards they have had in sales in the last 2 years.
However, I do agree that apple can capture an even larger market with a device that is slightly bigger and do it in a way as to not alienate its core-customer base that has bought various generations of iphones. An optimized UI in IOS8 and a form factor that keeps the physicial dimensions of the phone as close to the original would go a long way. At the end the consumer decides based on what he/she sees in the product, Size is one such parameter but there are plenty of them at play from features to price to overall design quality. Increase the features and performance of IOS8 and iphone6 abd many (if not damn near all) of the apple loyals who want a 4-4.3 inch phone will still stick around.
What drives the culture and to a large extend the corporate governance and strategy at that company is the ability to produce a few products, knock them out of the park and still manage huge sales numbers with a market-leading profit margin. This reflects in each and every device they make from computers to tabs to phones. So for apple its not all about marketshare but their ability to offer a phone year after year that can command the sort of profit margins as they have acheived in the past despite of the tough competition. Thats where the R&D dollars are going, and that is why we see them acquire companies that can add value to their products in 1-2 years.
You see this reflect in their devices. Apple is not aiming to be a market leading (market share) company..The only way to do that for apple or anyone else would be to offer products in categories and markets that have the largest customer base..In mobile phones that is the lower end of the smartphone market that has seen tremendous growth in sales given Data availability increase in the developing world (China, India, Latin America, Africa etc)..Apple has not done this..They introduced a C version of the Iphone5 that essentially did (in terms of price) what they did every year (Previous model 100$ Cheaper) but did it at a higher profit margin. Not only did the 5C sell in numbers which the regular iphone5 would have struggled (In my opinion) but it managed to make more money for apple in terms of margins. At the end of the day apple wishes to compete only at the higher end of the smartphone market and is more interested in keeping its mobile phones as the top end of the charts and assomething considered as industry benchmarks (look at the entire 64 bit talk post 5s launch, where companies had to come out and say that they were also working on 64 bit..)...
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Well congratulations Apple fans, but I find that these days I only use my iPad for the Podcast app and not much else. If there was a suitable podcast app for Windows 8.1, I'd get a Windows tablet in a heartbeat and leave sell off my 2 iPads(2 & 3)....
Honestly I don't get the cheerleading unless you own Apple stock or are an employee and are involved in making the products. It's all very unseemly if you ask me.
Honestly I don't get the cheerleading unless you own Apple stock or are an employee and are involved in making the products. It's all very unseemly if you ask me.
