Apple's iPhone Continues to Outpace Smartphone Industry Growth

[Carniphage]

But the low-end phones will become smarter and smarter, so in five years time probably every £30 pound phone will be a smartphone. Apple's percentage of "smartphone" sales will therefore drop, but it won't matter, because the percentage of "high-end phone" sales will only increase.

Precisely, the smartphone definition will become irrelevant. There will be homeless people with $10 smartphones. Screw smartphones. We need to define the category that matters.

What really matters are Monkeyphones!

The definition of a Monkeyphone is pretty simple. Any phone that costs roughly $500-£500 unlocked is a Monkeyphone.

(Monkey is a slang term for £500)

It's that market that really matters, because there's more profit in one Monkeyphone than in 15 netbooks.

Apple currently are the market leader in the Monkeyphone space.

C.

 

[manu chao]

I think he's talking about running a third party app, like Pandora, in the backround and writing a note.

And what other apps than Pandora and Google Voice would actually need to run in the background?
Multitasking is all nice and well but you really need it only (on a device like the iPhone) for apps that perform a task in the background. And the only real thing to do in the background is playing music or listening to incoming communication (like Google Voice).

Again, it would be nice if this were possible but it is only a very tiny fraction of what apps do on the iPhone.

Listening to communication could naturally also be an app tracking your location via GPS. But running such an app is probably the fastest way to discharge your battery.

 

[ChazUK]

And what other apps than Pandora and Google Voice would actually need to run in the background?
Multitasking is all nice and well but you really need it only (on a device like the iPhone) for apps that perform a task in the background. And the only real thing to do in the background is playing music or listening to incoming communication (like Google Voice).

Again, it would be nice if this were possible but it is only a very tiny fraction of what apps do on the iPhone.

Listening to communication could naturally also be an app tracking your location via GPS. But running such an app is probably the fastest way to discharge your battery.

To some (like me), multitasking is a necessity, to others, it would be nice, others totally don't care.

All I know is that it's always best to have more than you need. That way you're never going to be left short.

 

[mrochester]

Precisely, the smartphone definition will become irrelevant. There will be homeless people with $10 smartphones. Screw smartphones. We need to define the category that matters.

What really matters are Monkeyphones!

The definition of a Monkeyphone is pretty simple. Any phone that costs roughly $500-£500 unlocked is a Monkeyphone.

(Monkey is a slang term for £500)

It's that market that really matters, because there's more profit in one Monkeyphone than in 15 netbooks.

Apple currently are the market leader in the Monkeyphone space.

C.

I don't think we need to define another category, and we certainly don't need to manufacture a category just to make Apple look like the best in that category. Apple is increasingly in competition with just about every other device out there since they mostly offer the same broad range of features and functions, and as we see touchscreen, full browser, HSDPA, wifi, GPS, auto-focus camera, expandable OS, etc etc, devices filter down into the £100-£150 mark on PAYG, it's only right to include them in the same category as the iPhone since that's by and large where the iPhone resides.

 

[Carniphage]

I don't think we need to define another category, and we certainly don't need to manufacture a category just to make Apple look like the best in that category. Apple is increasingly in competition with just about every other device out there since they mostly offer the same broad range of features and functions, and as we see touchscreen, full browser, HSDPA, wifi, GPS, auto-focus camera, expandable OS, etc etc, devices filter down into the £100-£150 mark on PAYG, it's only right to include them in the same category as the iPhone since that's by and large where the iPhone resides.

It's pretty easy to treat everything the same if you reduce it to its component parts.

"Batman and Robin", and "The Dark Knight" - are pretty much identical films when viewed as a checklist of features. To be honest, Batman and Robin has twice the superheroes and more supervillains too! On paper it should win hands down.

But oddly when placed in front of an audience they don't seem to be quite as equal. Something to do with the experience.

Same thing with the iPhone. Audiences are prepared to slap-down a subsidised Pony on the iPhone. They don't seem so keen on the N97.

Every phones sold will soon belong in the meaningless smartphone category. And Apple's marketshare of that "smartphone space" will become tiny. I am sure Nokia will be thrilled.

But I don't think Apple will be too upset, because owning 90% of the Monkeyphone space will be a lot more commercially significant than owning 90% of the cheap-end smartphone space.

C.

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 1.6; en-us; Archos5 Build/Donut) AppleWebKit/528.5+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Mobile Safari/525.20.1)

I don't think we need to define another category, and we certainly don't need to manufacture a category just to make Apple look like the best in that category. Apple is increasingly in competition with just about every other device out there since they mostly offer the same broad range of features and functions, and as we see touchscreen, full browser, HSDPA, wifi, GPS, auto-focus camera, expandable OS, etc etc, devices filter down into the £100-£150 mark on PAYG, it's only right to include them in the same category as the iPhone since that's by and large where the iPhone resides.

It's pretty easy to treat everything the same if you reduce it to its component parts.

"Batman and Robin", and "The Dark Knight" - are pretty much identical films when viewed as a checklist of features. To be honest, Batman and Robin has twice the superheroes and more supervillains too! On paper it should win hands down.

But oddly when placed in front of an audience they don't seem to be quite as equal. Something to do with the experience.

Same thing with the iPhone. Audiences are prepared to slap-down a subsidised Pony on the iPhone. They don't seem so keen on the N97.

Every phones sold will soon belong in the meaningless smartphone category. And Apple's marketshare of that "smartphone space" will become tiny. I am sure Nokia will be thrilled.

But I don't think Apple will be too upset, because owning 90% of the Monkeyphone space will be a lot more commercially significant than owning 90% of the cheap-end smartphone space.

C.

After hearing about the expected total domination of the iPhone regularly from some users here, it's a shame to see others reverting into the old marketshare doesn't matter mantra.

Unless Nokia start selling Symbian handsets at a loss, they will likely do well in sheer volume of sales.

With Symbian now open source, I expect to see Symbian strengthen as other manufacturers take advantage of it too. As soon as things get hard for the iPhone and smartphones from other manufacturers becoe more accessable to the general population, marketshare won't matter any more to some.

 

[mrochester]

It's pretty easy to treat everything the same if you reduce it to its component parts.

"Batman and Robin", and "The Dark Knight" - are pretty much identical films when viewed as a checklist of features. To be honest, Batman and Robin has twice the superheroes and more supervillains too! On paper it should win hands down.

But oddly when placed in front of an audience they don't seem to be quite as equal. Something to do with the experience.

Same thing with the iPhone. Audiences are prepared to slap-down a subsidised Pony on the iPhone. They don't seem so keen on the N97.

Every phones sold will soon belong in the meaningless smartphone category. And Apple's marketshare of that "smartphone space" will become tiny. I am sure Nokia will be thrilled.

But I don't think Apple will be too upset, because owning 90% of the Monkeyphone space will be a lot more commercially significant than owning 90% of the cheap-end smartphone space.

C.

I think you're a little confused between defining what is good and what is bad (which is subjective), and defining something which is tangible, like a smartphone, which is objective. Both 'Batman and Robin' and 'The Dark Night' are defined as films, and are defined as such based on a checklist of features that make them films. As such, they are not TV dramas, soaps, or reality TV shows, they are films. A smartphone, if such a category was relevent, would be based on an equally objective list of features. However, as no one can actual decide or agree on what defines a smartphone, using it as a means to compare and analyse is completely pointless since the very founding of the evidence is shaky at best. This is why the category of 'mobile phone' would be a lot more sensible a way to compare and analyse these devices since that is, on the whole, a category that people can agree on. User experience has absolutely no place in defining categories because it is subjective.

 

[sjo]

And what other apps than Pandora and Google Voice would actually need to run in the background?

As we're getting devices such as Ipad that can display 2-4 Iphone apps on the screen at the same time the restriction of running only one 3rd party app at a time also gets more difficult to understand.

No operating system that is considered smartphone operating system has had such restriction for ten years.

 

[fox10078]

A fine example proving the point of my post. Better overall product that is 3rd and has a dipping market share. Yeah, sounds so credible.

I guess all those consumers just don't know any better right ? There's no good reason to choose other models ...

I don't know, I'm sure Toyota sells more cars than Ferrari, but does that make their cars better? No. Sales figures =/= quality of product.

 

[ChazUK]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 1.6; en-us; Archos5 Build/Donut) AppleWebKit/528.5+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Mobile Safari/525.20.1)

A fine example proving the point of my post. Better overall product that is 3rd and has a dipping market share. Yeah, sounds so credible.

I guess all those consumers just don't know any better right ? There's no good reason to choose other models ...

I don't know, I'm sure Toyota sells more cars than Ferrari, but does that make their cars better? No. Sales figures =/= quality of product.

Define "better".

Better to some may be beter fuel economy or lower upkeep costs, to others it may be speed, looks and raw power.

It's all down to the user and what they want.

 

[KnightWRX]

But I don't think Apple will be too upset, because owning 90% of the Monkeyphone space will be a lot more commercially significant than owning 90% of the cheap-end smartphone space.

C.

Except Apple is behind RIM. And RIM's phones are pretty much all heavily subsidised monkeyphones too by your own definition.

Hence, they aren't the leader there either. Nice try though.

Face it, the iPhone is a good product and is doing well. It's not the best and it's not a market leader. There really aren't any in the mobile phone space.

Competition is good and should never be dismissed.

 

[Dammit Cubs]

Told you.

-Dammit Cubs

 

[reckless2k2]

I don't know if that story's true, but it wouldn't surprise me. iPhones are, just like Macs, a rarity in the corporate environment. As an external contractor I've seen a lot of different companies, big and small, and it's all Nokia or Blackberry. (Generally)

(And HP or Dell desktops).

I remember iPhone haters talking about him not even using an iPhone and that he was using the Nokia N97. That was shortly before the iPhone 3G. It was reasonable. There was no 3G on the first generation and the software didn't support Exchange. Not like I really know if their Corporate even uses Exchange. By now though, wouldn't it be a little hypocritical if he wasn't using one?

What's his email again? I heard he legit occasionally responds to emails.

 

[Carniphage]

Except Apple is behind RIM. And RIM's phones are pretty much all heavily subsidised monkeyphones too by your own definition.

Hence, they aren't the leader there either. Nice try though.

Face it, the iPhone is a good product and is doing well. It's not the best and it's not a market leader. There really aren't any in the mobile phone space.

Competition is good and should never be dismissed.

Oh I agree!

I think RIM and Apple are currently engaging in some real competition. And it is competition in the most important and lucrative sector of the market. (AKA Monkeyphones!)

My point is simply that the numbers in the OP seem to suggest that Nokia is dominating this space - and that really does not paint an accurate picture at all. Nokia is just dominating the mid-low end price points. And is dramatically losing market share at the high end.

The real battle is in the +$500 price point space. And RIM and Apple are the ones in that space. Nokia is in 3rd place.

C.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Oh I agree!

I think RIM and Apple are currently engaging in some real competition. And it is competition in the most important and lucrative sector of the market. (AKA Monkeyphones!)

My point is simply that the numbers in the OP seem to suggest that Nokia is dominating this space - and that really does not paint an accurate picture at all. Nokia is just dominating the mid-low end price points. And is dramatically losing market share at the high end.

The real battle is in the +$500 price point space. And RIM and Apple are the ones in that space. Nokia is in 3rd place.

C.

Nokia gets hurt on the high end because well those phones are do not have a 300-400 subsidy on them. People have to buy them at full value.
Plus a lot of people here know next to nothing about Nokia as Nokia phones are piratically non existential in the US.

 

[Carniphage]

it's a shame to see others reverting into the old marketshare doesn't matter mantra.

Unless Nokia start selling Symbian handsets at a loss, they will likely do well in sheer volume of sales.

They are doing fine and will continue to do fine. But they have one big problem. Nokia have lost the battle for the top end. And it is the top end which really makes the really big profits. Apple's relatively tiny market share is (arguably) generating more profit than the whole of Nokias immense line up. And that isn't good for Nokia.

Low and mid-range handsets make modest profits. And Nokia will sell lots of them. But the phone market is 50% technology and 50% fashion. The top end defines sexy. Second-class and unsexy is not the way to lead a fashion sensitive market.

The N900 Maemo phone promise to improve Nokia's image. But I am not sure Nokia know what to do with it. The very idea that it is competing with Symbian devices is enough to infuriate the already disgruntled Symbian development community.

C.

 

[KnightWRX]

My point is simply that the numbers in the OP seem to suggest that Nokia is dominating this space - and that really does not paint an accurate picture at all. Nokia is just dominating the mid-low end price points. And is dramatically losing market share at the high end.

The real battle is in the +$500 price point space. And RIM and Apple are the ones in that space. Nokia is in 3rd place.

C.

That's true only if you're a shareholder. And even then, there's good in volume sales of low end devices, so it's not entirely true. You're being shortsighted in your quest to lick Apple's boots.

Nokia is the biggest player right now. They aren't "also-rans" or "dying". It doesn't matter in which space they are competing because there is no high-end in the mobile phone sector. Everything is so heavily subsidised that it doesn't matter what your full price is.

I don't know, I'm sure Toyota sells more cars than Ferrari, but does that make their cars better? No. Sales figures =/= quality of product.

Yeah, a Ferrari is such a great grocery getter

The iPhone isn't exactly a Ferrari. More like a Honda Accord vs Nokia's Hyundai Elantra.

Both pretty much do the same thing, with the same cargo space. One has better fit and finish, the other a lower price tag.

Both are outsold by the Chevrolet Malibu.

None of these is better, nor is it market leader. My point here : The iPhone is just one option. It's not the best and market leader like is claimed on here so often.

BTW, the Ferrari of phones is of course, the Vertu Ascent Ferrari. It has the name and the logo to match your Ferrari. Because you won't be buying this phone if you can't afford the car. And guess who makes this phone ? That's right, starts with N ends with okia.

So much for Apple owning the "high-end". Apple doesn't even know what high-end means in the cellphone market.

 

[0092762]

A news article from 2012

Here is a news article from January 2012:
Apple's iPad continues to outpace tablet/netbook industry growth

It's not perfect now, but give it time, it'll get close to perfect just like the iphone improved from 2G to 3GS with OS3.0.

 

[dgree03]

That's true only if you're a shareholder. And even then, there's good in volume sales of low end devices, so it's not entirely true. You're being shortsighted in your quest to lick Apple's boots.

Nokia is the biggest player right now. They aren't "also-rans" or "dying". It doesn't matter in which space they are competing because there is no high-end in the mobile phone sector. Everything is so heavily subsidised that it doesn't matter what your full price is.



Yeah, a Ferrari is such a great grocery getter

The iPhone isn't exactly a Ferrari. More like a Honda Accord vs Nokia's Hyundai Elantra.

Both pretty much do the same thing, with the same cargo space. One has better fit and finish, the other a lower price tag.

Both are outsold by the Chevrolet Malibu.

None of these is better, nor is it market leader. My point here : The iPhone is just one option. It's not the best and market leader like is claimed on here so often.

BTW, the Ferrari of phones is of course, the Vertu Ascent Ferrari. It has the name and the logo to match your Ferrari. Because you won't be buying this phone if you can't afford the car. And guess who makes this phone ? That's right, starts with N ends with okia.

So much for Apple owning the "high-end". Apple doesn't even know what high-end means in the cellphone market.

Good Points... people just seem to forget about nokia and what it does or has DONE in the last 10 years..

Nokias high end phone sell VERY well outside the USA... and some VERY well in the us... N95 anyone?

Nokia also have N97, N96, N93, N92, N91, N90, N82, N81..... ALL were over $400 at one time or another... ALL were successful... because if they werent.. Nokia wouldnt make them anymore...

 

[Carniphage]

That's true only if you're a shareholder.

If you are interested in business, then what matters is profits.

You can make profits selling volume - or you can aim highly profitable but low-volume niche. Normally its the volume strategy that wins out.

Nokia can write-off the high-end ($500+) market as insignificant - and leave it for others. Because, after all, they sell many more low-end handsets.

So why should they care?

Well they should care if the low-volume, high-profits company is actually making *more* cash than they are. It's no good being number 1 in units if you are number 3 in profits.

In PC land, Asus finds itself in a similar position, it sells many more computers than Apple. But the profits are so razor-thin that company selling the cardboard packaging are probably making more money per PC than Asus is. There's simply no point in having market share if it does not create profit. Business is not supposed to be a charitable venture. Anyone can achieve great market share by giving stuff away.

Nokia were one of the first to realise that phones are part technology and part fashion. And like all fashionable products, the high end is what matters.

And if Nokia crash and burn at the high-end, they cease to be cool, they cease to be sexy and that means they cease to be fashionable.

In the cellphone market, that isn't where they should be.

C.

 

[dgree03]

Here is a news article from January 2012:
Apple's iPad continues to outpace tablet/netbook industry growth

It's not perfect now, but give it time, it'll get close to perfect just like the iphone improved from 2G to 3GS with OS3.0.

Iphone is FAR from perfect... its actually a bottom feeder in terms of what it has...

it solely sells on the FANTASIC marketing/advertising department at apple! Kudos to them... they have figured it out...(cept for the name "Ipad")

 

[Carniphage]

Iphone is FAR from perfect... its actually a bottom feeder in terms of what it has...
it solely sells on the FANTASIC marketing/advertising department at apple! Kudos to them... they have figured it out...(cept for the name "Ipad")

It's not that the N97 sucks. It's simply the consumers are too stupid to see it's virtues.

C.

 

[dgree03]

It's not that the N97 sucks. It's simply the consumers are too stupid to see it's virtues.

C.

I wouldnt say too stupid.. its just not rammed down there throat...

Apple is one of the best marketing companies in the world... thats why the iphone, to the average consumer, seems to be the best phone out there... before even after te first iphone was introduced... it was still the worst phone feature wise and spec wise...

oh well... i blame nokia... and ATT/T-Mobile for not bringing over more high end phones subsidized..

 

[Thex1138]

Wonka Phone

Willy Jobsy and Chocolate Factory
[from 9to5]

 

[Stella]

How would describe the Nokia phone as a smartphone from user's point of view?

As user, I would define Nokia smartphones as 'great smartphones'. But thats my opinion, and Symbian works very very well for me. Everyone has the right to their own opinion, of course.

Like I said in the beginning, my definition will depend on how end user uses the phone. If the user does not use it as a smartphone then it is not a smartphone.

They are doing fine and will continue to do fine. But they have one big problem. Nokia have lost the battle for the top end.

The N900 Maemo phone promise to improve Nokia's image. But I am not sure Nokia know what to do with it. The very idea that it is competing with Symbian devices is enough to infuriate the already disgruntled Symbian development community.

C.

Isn't Maemo now the new high end Nokia phone? I think it will be, google "Maemo high end" - lots of evidence to suggest so.




Selling lots and lots of phones - thats Nokia's business, it doesn't really matter if Apple is more profitable per unit. Nokia will make their incoming by selling in volume. Apple's business model is differs. Nokia is targeting emerging markets, which is working very well for them.