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Apple's Smartphone Market Share Slips as Huawei, Lenovo Make Gains
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Yes, I know the Moto G is good, but I was being deliberately "Generous"
Showing, as an example, how a budget? Mobile phone now, is better than a Flagship phone just a few years old.
In say 5 or 10 years time imagine how amazing a budget phone will be by then!
But how much better can a flagship phone get?
"What ruined Apple was not growth....They made outlandish profits for about four years. What this cost them was their future. What they should have been doing is making rational profits and going for market share.”
- Steve Jobs
We'll see if history repeats itself.
- Steve Jobs
We'll see if history repeats itself.
"What ruined Apple was not growth....They made outlandish profits for about four years. What this cost them was their future. What they should have been doing is making rational profits and going for market share.
- Steve Jobs
We'll see if history repeats itself.
This is very true. Though I think that Apple is in a far healthier place at this point in time than they were at that point. Then they just made computers, now they have iPhones, iPads, computers, etc. I think it will be more difficult for them to tank this time around, though Blackberry certainly shows that anything is possible
Samsung is losing ground because you have some solid choices now in the Android space. Devices like the LG G3, HTC M8 and Sony xperia Z2 are great phones. The Galaxy S5 is just a rehash of the S4 but with more bells and whistles.
If both Apple and Samsung want to recapture the lost market share, just release some interesting devices and quit resting on their laurels.
If both Apple and Samsung want to recapture the lost market share, just release some interesting devices and quit resting on their laurels.
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Are we going round on circles, or.just denying the truth here?.. 10.years?.. How about this.year.. The 135 pound quad core retina display 4.5in moto. G, only a 5 mp. Camera and unapologetically plastic, is stunning at that price point.. It makes every other phone on the market seem well.over priced..
The.insides of.phones are.just commodities.now, a.chip from here, a screen from there etc.. Get a 7yr old kid to build them in China , hey presto. A different badge, a different price point. Anyone.thinking paying more is some way of.guaranteeing more quality,.more performance, more luxury etc.. Is just kidding themselves, and is using "a badge" to make.up for low self esteem..
Apple probably doesn't care as long as they make the most profits. That being said, it's pretty impressive that they had more market share than most of their competition AND only sell expensive phones. I'm going to take a guess that the two biggest reasons Samsung lost ground are that Huawei undercut them in China and such on the low end, and the high end Galaxy phones have been underwhelming because no one needs to gesture in the air to use their phone. Or, for that matter, have a watch that does everything their smartphone does, but worse.
I'm also going to guess that the new iPhones are going to crush Samsung this holiday season.
I'm also going to guess that the new iPhones are going to crush Samsung this holiday season.
Most popular PC with a GUI? Sure... that might count for something.
But the Mac has NEVER had significant market share... as jrswizzle said.
Notice the Mac, that little sliver of pink, in the middle of this chart:
And it's a trend that continued for decades:
This does not mean the Mac is a failure, however. The Mac is more of a niche PC.
But that's fine. A niche that is profitable is better than a majority that loses money.
Remember when HP and Dell were thinking about getting out of the consumer PC market because they couldn't make money on it? Clearly market share isn't all it's cracked up to be.
And look at all the PC giants who are no longer with us: Compaq, IBM, Sony, Gateway. They've all been acquired by other companies... usually as a last ditch effort to save themselves. And those were all companies who had much more market share than the Mac.
So again... what good is market share if you still can't cut it in the market?
And this translates to today's mobile market too. Lots of companies selling smartphones and tablets... very few actually making money.
I'm curious to see who's around in 5 years.
Price Point
It all boils down to price. There are more people out there who cant afford top of the line than who can. Samsungs modus of operation is copy successful products then sell them cheaper like, cell phones, refrigerators, washing machines to televisions. They have become hugely successful as a tech cloning company and it has paid off big time financially, giving them the incentive to continue this parasitic model.
It all boils down to price. There are more people out there who cant afford top of the line than who can. Samsungs modus of operation is copy successful products then sell them cheaper like, cell phones, refrigerators, washing machines to televisions. They have become hugely successful as a tech cloning company and it has paid off big time financially, giving them the incentive to continue this parasitic model.
If you think the Moto G is "just as good" as the iPhone 5s, then good for you. You get to save some money. But the simple fact is that millions of people disagree with you.
I have no problems if people choose to buy budget gear. Heck, I tend to buy cheap clothes, cars, shoes, etc. But I have no problems if people want to buy the expensive stuff. It's their money.
So I'm not trying to convince anyone that my iPhone 5s is "better" than their Moto G or whatever phone. Enjoy what you have. It's all good.
The only thing I'm trying to state for this discussion is that many millions (2013 fiscal year ~12 million per month) buy an iPhone. They decided the iPhone was better for them. It's a personal choice.
It doesn't matter if their purchase decision was based on facts or due to "low self esteem". The point is there will always be buyers of high-end products. You can mock them all you want, but I'm pretty sure they couldn't care less what you think.
Anyone with a knowledge of telecommunications does.
Unfortunately that's a very misleading article, because it mixed up world and US sales, which have very different growth rates.
The IDC chart was for US sales only, and if you look at their chart from last quarter, they indeed show a "double-digit" US sales increase just as Apple said.
The article's attempt to handwave against IDC is made even more ironic by the fact that it then quoted Cook himself using IDC as a source to say that sales were comparatively good, because they happened "... in a market that is shrinking by 2% according to IDC's latest estimate."
In fact, Apple quotes IDC in almost every earnings call.
They made/make fake Samsung phones, fake iPhones, fake Cisco routers, etc. Their Wikipedia page has a section on their stolen IP.
I personally think its not long until people step back and see how expensive the apple iphone is, and the will to pay that is going to wane.
So maybe when the market grows and all the sales go to cheaper models, Samsung isn't "better", just cheaper.
So Apple remains, still sweeping up most of the profits.
mwop mwop mwa
You bring up an interesting question. Sales going to cheaper models. Are they really, in the sense that the number of iPhones are dropping (because folks are ditching their iPhones). OR is it that folks that might not have been inclined to get a smart phone cause they didn't see the point and were fine with their old flippers were lured by super cheap Samsungs. Thus increasing the total number of smart phones and lowering Apple's percent but their sales are actually the same.
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And that is the attitude that Apple has had for years. Which might be why they ditched the Anti ads for computers a few years ago and never really got into it for their devices. Other companies gains aren't seen as their loss because there's still plenty to go around. Now when the world is completely digital and everyone including "Starvin' Marvin" has a computer, a smart phone, a tablet, a digital tv box thingy etc, then they might start feeling threatened.
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When the iPad launched. For basically that whole first year they had something like 90% of the tablet market. A major factor was that most of those companies that announced stuff in Dec/Jan right before the iPad failed to actually produce. But even when things got to the iPad 2 they were still pretty high up there
Apple has always sold "expensive" products... but there's no shortage of buyers.
Apple's iPhone sales have increased every year... so they obviously haven't hit the ceiling yet. I guess it depends on how much you like Apple's operating systems and their associated ecosystems.
First some history. In the old days... the only way to get a Mac was from Apple... and you had to pay dearly for it.
Windows machines, however, were cheaper and available from multiple manufacturers who are all competing with each other selling similar products. A price war ensued... and Windows PC prices dropped.
The Mac was "expensive" compared to a Windows machine... but it offered something that no other computer had... Mac OS. And they sell enough of them... just look at how well Apple's Mac division is doing.
Now look at all the casualties in the PC market over the last decade or so. Clearly going "cheap" wasn't the right answer. But what do you expect when 10 companies all sell the same basic "Windows" computer?
And the same sorta thing is happening in the mobile market today.
The iPhone is an "expensive" smartphone... but it offers something that no other smartphone has... iOS. And Apple sells more than enough of them.
The price wars are happening again... this time among Android manufacturers.
Meanwhile... Apple is marching to the beat of their own drum... like they always have.
I'm not saying Apple is untouchable... but they're clearly playing a different game than everyone else.
HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus, etc are all fighting in the Windows market... while Apple is more than comfortable in the Mac market.
Samsung, Huawei, Lenovo, LG, etc are all fighting in the Android market... while Apple is more than comfortable in the iPhone market.
So again... Apple has always sold "expensive" products... but they are actually thriving.
For Isis's sake, how do you put a table with competitors of 60% and HIDE the rest of the competition which amounts to more than all the competitors shown?
That quote summarizes the one shortcoming of the market share metric: the fact that it can depict completely the opposite of what's happening. Apple is selling more phones but it's bad because it represents less market share. ???
To me, market share only makes sense when you hone the "market" in question down to a very specific class of products. Premium smart phones, for example. Including the iPhone or higher-end phones from Samsung in the same market with a bunch of cheap knock-offs and crap phones cranked out only to flood the store shelves is meaningless. I wonder who it is that such a statistic has any relevance.
Fiscal year (FY) 2013 Apple sold 150M iPhones. FY2014 they're on track to sell 170-180M depending on when the iPhone 6 hits the market. Year-over-year iPhone unit sales are growing 15-20% But since the overall smartphone market is growing at a faster rate, iPhone's market share is declining.
As others have already pointed out, market share is only one way of analyzing what is happening in the phone market. It's not the most important metric, yet it's the easiest to "calculate" (guess), so gets the most attention among the press & punditry.
Despite the tendency to predict doom & gloom for Apple, few believe that they are going to sell fewer iPhones in FY2015. There is an increasingly large number of very satisfied iPhone users, many of whom are eagerly anticipating the next version. I don't think there's any doubt that Apple will sell >200M iPhones in FY2015. That's easily >$100B worth of phones. With revenue like that, Apple doesn't need to bust a gut just for market share.
Another example is the iPod, which continues to hover around 70% share of a dying market. Tim Cook commented sometime this past year that their goal is to make the best product they can. Sometimes they get dominant market share (iPod & iPad), sometimes they don't (Mac & iPhone).
They are also one of the industry leaders in network infrastructure. Their devices power some of the largest mobile networks in the world.
Same goes for putting $3,000 Mac Pro and $200 Chromebook/netbook in the same category. Alternatively, if a $200 laptop with a 11" display and limited hardware & software counts as a computer, why doesn't a $500 iPad with a 10" display and many thousands of useful apps? I think Canalys does include tablet sales, which makes Apple the #1 computer maker. Seems like most market share analyses are gerrymandered against Apple.
Exactly.
And it's funny how Apple seems to be more successful when they're not in the #1 position.