Apple needs to step it up a bit, find itself again and put out better ads. The one shown at WWDC was pathetic.
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Apple's Share of Tablet Market Sinks on Lack of Product Launches in Early 2013
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Let's see, Apple have let their product line stagnate for ages. An iPad that looks (to the lay person) the same as it did in early 2011, and a mini that although cool, still did the bare minimum in specs to make it appealing. That left plenty of room to trickle in better tech this year.
So over the last 10 months or so, a million PC makers and phone makers have seen the writing on the wall for the PC market and thrown in to compete in this android powered chaos. Lots of money was made and lost and people decided whether their sluggish android experience on an underpowered arm processor is "good enough" considering its a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than an iPad. Others just wanted something different from a vanilla iPad and Samsung cleaned up because it makes all its own components and can sell them to itself wholesale - thus making generally better specced kit for the same price as all the other android 'me-toos'.
There's no denying Apples products and ecosystem are excellent, but they're suffering for standing still whilst this tablet market has exploded, smugly commenting "well our one is still better"
This isn't all meant to be inflammatory I'm just waffling on before I go to bed
So over the last 10 months or so, a million PC makers and phone makers have seen the writing on the wall for the PC market and thrown in to compete in this android powered chaos. Lots of money was made and lost and people decided whether their sluggish android experience on an underpowered arm processor is "good enough" considering its a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than an iPad. Others just wanted something different from a vanilla iPad and Samsung cleaned up because it makes all its own components and can sell them to itself wholesale - thus making generally better specced kit for the same price as all the other android 'me-toos'.
There's no denying Apples products and ecosystem are excellent, but they're suffering for standing still whilst this tablet market has exploded, smugly commenting "well our one is still better"
This isn't all meant to be inflammatory I'm just waffling on before I go to bed
Ha believe me there's far more truth where that came from but it's more fun to say the most valuable company in the world is doomed I guess!
Sigh. It's not about shipped vs sold. It's about these analytics firms using official data from Apple's quarterly earnings calls vs estimates for everyone else. And in some instances estimating Apple's figures too. Since most of these companies don't tell you how many tablets they ship (either directly to consumers or to resellers) how do we know what the total number of tablets in the market place is? How do they come up with their estimates? How do we know the estimates are accurate as there's no way to audit them or prove their accuracy. And when these firms change their future forecasts (like for Windows Phone market share in future years) no one ever questions it. How did these firms get the reputation of bein accurate in the first place?
I couldn't agree with you more.
I travel quite a bit, and spend a fair amount of time every month in airplanes and airports. But I have NEVER seen a tablet that wasn't an iPad or iPad mini.
I'm not saying people don't buy them, but for all the numbers being thrown around (whether shipped or sold), where the hell are they??
Just last Friday, I flew from Atlanta to So Cal. Given that Atlanta is the busiest airport in the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_busiest_airport), you'd think that there would be a good mix of electronic toys being used. I saw plenty of Android phones, but during the 2.5 hours I was sitting in/walking around the terminal, and the 4 hours I was in the air, the only tablets I saw were iPads.
Now, I'm not claiming this to be a scientific study in any way shape or form, and I don't run around looking for people using tablets. But of the people I've seen and/or sat near during my travels over the past 2+ years, I have yet to see a single Android tablet.
The iPad does have traction... Apple is actually selling more tablets now than they did 3 years ago.
But you're right... their market share number is going down... due to many other tablets appearing on the market.
You can't fault Apple because a bunch of Chinese companies are shipping tons of terrible tablets.
Apple still sold 14 million tablets last quarter... regardless of how many the other guys sold.
That's why never understood using market share as a performance metric.
Market share is not just Apple.... it's Apple plus a dozen other companies. And Apple has no control over what those other guys do.
Should Apple be punished because there are $70 Android tablets on the market?
Where is IDC getting their numbers from? Do Samsung and others report shipped figures to IDC?
While it's interesting to see these metrics (and how Android tablets are supposedly catching up and even surpassing Apple), I think they are somewhat irrelevant.
I see Apple as a company that redefines a segment, carves it's niche, and then sits back and (somewhat) competes with itself.
Yes, there are more "other" tablets out there, but the question really is whether or not Apple's sales are down.
And this should be measured after the typical release cycle, since they effectively "spread the wealth" with monster quarters after a release (especially ones where a redesign or new product is involved).
Their strategy has legs, I think.
I see Apple as a company that redefines a segment, carves it's niche, and then sits back and (somewhat) competes with itself.
Yes, there are more "other" tablets out there, but the question really is whether or not Apple's sales are down.
And this should be measured after the typical release cycle, since they effectively "spread the wealth" with monster quarters after a release (especially ones where a redesign or new product is involved).
Their strategy has legs, I think.
Yep and also using PRE-TAX income vs POST-TAX income from Apple.
It's amazing people pay these guys for data and that they even have jobs.
Thanks... yeah I found the Dediu article about phone profits and it made sense.
I read the Elger article last week. I don't get his argument that Strategy Analytics invented the whitebox tablet. Analysts were talking about whitebox tablets back in 2010, eventually something hits significant marketshare, you can't pretend it doesn't exist anymore, so they retro'd it. If you're painting a picture based on OS marketshare, the accurate thing to do is to include them. Alternative is to do what IDC does and ignore OS and just focus on OEM's.
I don't disagree with your economics. But just because someone has more money, doesn't necessarily mean they're going buy something more expensive.
I can afford a MBA, but I choose not to buy one, because I find it too expensive for what it offers. But I have an iPad because, in my opinion, it is well worth the extra cost, compared to "generitablets."
Yep I'd say so
And rising. I think the worst is over for the next year or two. The majority of rumors of Apple's demise have been debunked and Samsung had a pretty big epic fail of the S4.
You have the following big items coming down the pipe within 3-6 months
iPhone 5s
iPhone 5c (big big for rest of world..huge actually...going to kill Android #s)
iPad 5 (same screen, smaller form factor shedding an inch or more from width)
iPad Mini 2 Retina
MacBook Pro Haswell
MacPro Cylinder
and then after that (some rumors, some real, some who know).
iPhone 6 (larger screen with current size)
iPad Maxi (11.9 inch iPad)
iWatch (game changer)
iTV (real TV not the box).
This is true too, but in general companies are good at keeping production in line with demand, so instances such as the massive Touchpad oversupply aren't very common.
That said, I wouldn't try to minimize the significance of the apparent decline in iPad unit sales. The only mitigating factors are the shifting of new model introductions to a somewhat later schedule, and the fact that Apple is now facing competition in segments of the tablet market (very low end) that they don't have a plan to address. At this point I don't think we really know how important the very low end of the tablet market will be. I tend to think these are mostly disposable products that won't have much of an impact on the middle and upper ranges of the market where Apple sells, but it's really too soon to say.
So what this report is saying is Apple sold, I mean shipped, more iPads last year in the quarter after it released the third-gen iPad than it did this year about six or more months after its last product refresh.
Naw, really?
Naw, really?
its been a quite year so far for apple
what has got most of us going was the June event as we wait in anticipation of these promised cool gadgets.
I know one Thing, its worth the wait!
what has got most of us going was the June event as we wait in anticipation of these promised cool gadgets.
I know one Thing, its worth the wait!
Are the tablets actually functional in retail stores?
From what I remember looking at initial tablets in retail stores, most of the time they were not even functional, in marked contrast to Apple stores. I'm not sure how some retail places sell a single tablet.
From what I remember looking at initial tablets in retail stores, most of the time they were not even functional, in marked contrast to Apple stores. I'm not sure how some retail places sell a single tablet.
Ultimately the consumer doesn't win if the vendor prices himself into self-immolation.
Are we talking about businesses or charities?
Pricing isn't "competitive" if it results in business failure.
Who's keeping Google honest?
So your using your friend as the benchmark on why Apple tablet shares are sinking? What about people that buy iPads and return those for something else? You can't tell me that the only Apple returns are for warranty related issues? I've read plenty of times on this forum where iPad 4 buyers returned their devices for a iPad mini or iPad mini buyers wanting a iPad 4. And what about people that buy one color iDevice and then return it for another color iDevice? People were returning black iPhones 5's because they scratched easier than the white one's.
Trust me, if Apple released the iPad 5 along with a retina iPad mini 2 your going to have returns/exchanges flying left and right. Just look at the comments here on this forums about iPad vs iPad mini. I would say that Apple's numbers are boosted as well just from undecided Apple buyers.
People can't face the fact that Android offers a lot of choices at different price points with an OS that matches/exceeds Apple. And it doesn't help that Apple is letting this happen by not fighting back with new product. That's the number one issue I see. Not because your buddy decided he returned a Android tablet for a iPad.
Problem is a lot of Apple supporters use the wrong argument (e.g. shipped vs sold). Doesn't matter if these firms are using shipped or sold figures. What matters is we don't have good insight in to how they arrive at their numbers (especially future years predictions) and when they do adjust future years from what they previously forecasted no one questions it. Like Strategy Analytics creating this "white box" category and then adjusting prior reports for this category. I'm sorry but at that point they're just pulling numbers out of their you know what.
HP and Dell are in trouble but they are still making money (very little) in the PC market. They've been forced to shrink their market size to go after profitable sales. Normal business practice.
Again, they are profitable as they also use PCs to offer sell-through services, printers, and even enterprise hardware.
Last I checked, Dell and HP are not bankrupt. Certainly not Samsung. If HTC, Sony, etc. all lose enough money on mobile, they will exit the market leaving someone else to make the profits or use it as a loss leader for other products and services (Motorola).
Not everyone has to follow Apple's high-price, high-margin model.
Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, and other smaller companies. If Google gets to big and becomes a monopoly, the FTC has stepped in as they did with AT&T and Microsoft.