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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.

And you just made my point. Somewhat. Numbers for a couple more years back would really make it. Because they would back up that Apple isn't selling any fewer phones than now.
 
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 :cool:

Why do people have to bring up profits when it has nothing to do with customers?? The only people who should be concerned about Apple's profits are Apple themselves and stock holders.

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How IDC comes up with its numbers. Basically it's BS. Tim Cook should stop giving them legitimacy by quoting them in earnings calls.

http://fortune.com/2014/07/28/pc-sales-estimates-how-the-sausage-gets-made/

Yeah but if Apple had 80% percent of the worldwide market than IDC would be relevant uh?
 
So obviously all companies kind of lost for this Q2, the only winner is Google.

When there are no more big Android players, but hundreds of small & tiny ones, vanilla Android will command. By that time almost no customers will pay attention to which brand of smartphone they get, they will only know whether they got an Android phone (which means mainstream) or a non-Android phone. From that time, the game will become harder and harder for Apple to play.

I agree with everything you said. I've been saying this all along that Samsung is not and should not be the face of Android and that cheaper flagships running Android will rule over all the old school OEM's such HTC, Motorola, Sony, Samsung and Apple. The clear winner will be Android. I do think Apple will gain market share with a larger iPhone but that's only a temporary solution. Android OEMs especially those from China will just battle back with much cheaper alternatives with better specs. If you look at this article it's already happening.
I've seen HTC fall from grace, Motorola fall and next up will be Samsung (I own a Note 3). The winners will be cheap powerful phones from China running Android. $200 to $300 with no contract will become the norm. Apple will not go there.
 
Huawei ... like some drunk dude trying to spell Hawaii?

Never heard of them.

They said the same thing about Samsung a few years ago. I thought for the longest time that Samsung was Chinese or Japanese. We always tend to take competition lightly before it's too late. Samsung came out of no where to become the largest phone OEM today. So don't underestimate the competition.
 
My One Plus One is on its way. Who needs an iPhone anymore?!

Imagine if you could walk into any store and pick up a one plus one without that stupid invitation system. We are getting close to having a premium phone for $200 with no contract running Android. That would flip the entire industry on its head. Even Verizon would be impacted by that threat.
 
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.

No one is saying that the moto. G is better than the 5s, the moto. X takes that mantle.. However what we are.saying that the.gap is very small, and.for.a handset that is a quarter.of the.price that is ridiculous.. So for someone to suggest that it will take 10yrs. For.budget phones to catch up with premium.price ones is a.joke.. Its happening as we speak..
 
Good to see Samsung getting what they deserve. I have to use a Galaxy S4 for a client (working on an Android app for them). It is terrible. Not sure why people like them. Definitely much worse than my iPhone 5S and my Lumia 1520. It reminds me of the days of Windows computers loaded with bloatware. The whole thing is slow, it doesn't feel high quality, and the screen is ridiculously over-bright/over-contrasted.

Awful product.

I'm with you. I remember when my co-worker got the Galaxy S3. I expected a LOT cos the media hyped them up so much but when I used it, I felt like I was in bizarro world. It wasn't any better than my HTC Desire. In fact, it felt just as laggy, animations stuttered constantly and overall, Android still felt far less polished than even the first iPhone. You would've never guessed that though based on the reviews. But the media needs something to talk about I guess and can't rely on one iPhone launch a year to sustain them. So in the end, the unsuspecting consumer gets screwed.
 
I agree with everything you said. I've been saying this all along that Samsung is not and should not be the face of Android and that cheaper flagships running Android will rule over all the old school OEM's such HTC, Motorola, Sony, Samsung and Apple. The clear winner will be Android. I do think Apple will gain market share with a larger iPhone but that's only a temporary solution. Android OEMs especially those from China will just battle back with much cheaper alternatives with better specs. If you look at this article it's already happening.
I've seen HTC fall from grace, Motorola fall and next up will be Samsung (I own a Note 3). The winners will be cheap powerful phones from China running Android. $200 to $300 with no contract will become the norm. Apple will not go there.

These Chinese vendors don't use Google so the winner of all this will not be Google, but Bidu and a host of other Chinese companies that provide the services that Google provides outside of China. And there will always be a top 2 or 3 vendors for Android, just like in every other industry, and those vendors will want to differentiate themselves with skins so long as a Android remains open source because OEMs lack the core technology to do much more. Android will remain a fragmented mess that few companies will be able to monetize. Imagine Wintel but worse.
 
Why do people have to bring up profits when it has nothing to do with customers?? The only people who should be concerned about Apple's profits are Apple themselves and stock holders.

Probably the same reason marketshare is brought up when that too has nothing to do with customers. In fact I can't think of anyone who benefits from marketshare. Can you?

Yeah but if Apple had 80% percent of the worldwide market than IDC would be relevant uh?

It would probably be a more amazing story if one company had 80% marketshare, than several companies lumped together having it, yes. And that doesn't mean just apple. If Samsung managed to pull off 80% share, that would be very cool also.
 
Funny how just about every other news outlet has started their news on this data with how Samsung lost a whopping 7% of the total market, but Macrumors starts out their article with how Apple lost 1% of the total market...
 
Good to see Samsung getting what they deserve. I have to use a Galaxy S4 for a client (working on an Android app for them). It is terrible. Not sure why people like them. Definitely much worse than my iPhone 5S and my Lumia 1520. It reminds me of the days of Windows computers loaded with bloatware. The whole thing is slow, it doesn't feel high quality, and the screen is ridiculously over-bright/over-contrasted.

Awful product.

Conversely - I have no issues with my S4. The screen is fantastic and I experience no lag. The camera on it is pretty fantastic and I was able to shoot a ton of pictures this past week at a nightclub that came out nicely without a flash where my colleagues with iPhones pictures were dark and/or extremely grainy.

I also have several friends who have iPhones and plenty of issues with lag, crashing apps, lock ups, issues with iCloud, etc.

My point isn't to pit one company against the other. The point of my post is that individual use cases are just that.
 
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.

What are you talking about? Both IDC and Gartner reported losses for Apple in the US PC market last quarter.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/14...icts-idc-gartner-reports-of-a-mac-sales-slump

Why do people have to bring up profits when it has nothing to do with customers?? The only people who should be concerned about Apple's profits are Apple themselves and stock holders.

As a consumer, profits matter to me in that they speak to the long term viability of the platform and provide incentive for continued investment in improving it.
 
As a consumer, profits matter to me in that they speak to the long term viability of the platform and provide incentive for continued investment in improving it.

No doubt - but I think there's plenty of evidence that there are many on here who care less about long term viability and investments and more about bragging rights.
 
No doubt - but I think there's plenty of evidence that there are many on here who care less about long term viability and investments and more about bragging rights.

Definitely. On both sides. Hence why people here brag about marketshare. Pointless bragging. Although why people brag about marketshare is a head scratcher.

At least the profit boasters can say they're investors (even if they're lying lol). But what benefit to the consumer does marketshate give?
 
The waiting is the hardest part..

I would attribute the slip more to people waiting for the iPhone 6 than cheaper phones competing for market share. Cheaper phones have always been around. For as little as $0 with a contract anyone can get a pretty good smartphone.

Considering the iPhone 6 anticipation started in early spring or so and with so many people still using 4/4S iPhones it would make sense that Apple will make up for it before year's end. Reports indicate they're ordered 80 million phones to be delivered before the end of the year.
 
I would attribute the slip more to people waiting for the iPhone 6 than cheaper phones competing for market share. Cheaper phones have always been around. For as little as $0 with a contract anyone can get a pretty good smartphone.

Considering the iPhone 6 anticipation started in early spring or so and with so many people still using 4/4S iPhones it would make sense that Apple will make up for it before year's end. Reports indicate they're ordered 80 million phones to be delivered before the end of the year.

I dunno. The 5c took off when its price dropped. It didn't become a better phone it just got cheaper.

People like cheap stuff that works. I don't know why so many are afraid to admit it, instead of acting like consumers are doing months of research before buying phones.

Cheap sells.
 
Apple is down because you would pretty much have to be a complete idiot to buy an iPhone now, either because you want to upgrade or because even if you don't want a 6 the other models will drop considerably in price when it comes out.

The people buying other phones will have always bought those phones. No one is buying iPhones because everyone is waiting for the 6 to either buy or upgrade.

Apple will see a glorious season then.
 
Apple is down because you would pretty much have to be a complete idiot to buy an iPhone now, either because you want to upgrade or because even if you don't want a 6 the other models will drop considerably in price when it comes out.

The people buying other phones will have always bought those phones. No one is buying iPhones because everyone is waiting for the 6 to either buy or upgrade.

Apple will see a glorious season then.

That's for sure...apple is about to have the most successful season in their history. Well be the stuff of legends.
 
"Quick! More 4" iPhones QUICKLY!!!! Change the color, shape, bezel.......Just get more texting friendly phones out there"!

Millions of tiny hands await!
 
Definitely. On both sides. Hence why people here brag about marketshare. Pointless bragging. Although why people brag about marketshare is a head scratcher.

At least the profit boasters can say they're investors (even if they're lying lol). But what benefit to the consumer does marketshate give?

Software availability... Android is already at 80%-85% world wide market share, Windows Phone at 5%. In one or two years it might 90% Android, 5% IOS and 5% WinPhone.
The Google Playstore is already catching up in revenue and will overtake Apple sooner or later + Android has third-party Appstores like Amazon.
By time it will be more attractive for professional software developers to develop for Android.

And remember there is no Boot Camp on iPhone...
 
Software availability... Android is already at 80%-85% world wide market share, Windows Phone at 5%. In one or two years it might 90% Android, 5% IOS and 5% WinPhone.
The Google Playstore is already catching up in revenue and will overtake Apple sooner or later + Android has third-party Appstores like Amazon.
By time it will be more attractive for professional software developers to develop for Android.

And remember there is no Boot Camp on iPhone...

I can understand that, what I'm asking is how the common consumer benefits? If you're saying better applications because developers start noticing the marketshare, the same can be said about profits. Developers have consistently said they get more revenue from the app store than the play store.

So yeah, but obviously getting developer attention hasn't been a problem for apple.

I still see no reason how a company market share affects the individual consumer.

Let me rephrase, I see how it affects it i just don't see how its any different from profit boasting. People make it sound like profit boasting is the most ridiculous thing ever and then go crazy over marketshare.
 
I can understand that, what I'm asking is how the common consumer benefits? If you're saying better applications because developers start noticing the marketshare, the same can be said about profits. Developers have consistently said they get more revenue from the app store than the play store.

So yeah, but obviously getting developer attention hasn't been a problem for apple.

I still see no reason how a company market share affects the individual consumer.

Let me rephrase, I see how it affects it i just don't see how its any different from profit boasting. People make it sound like profit boasting is the most ridiculous thing ever and then go crazy over marketshare.

It's not so much about market share. What Android has is multiple vendors supporting it so there is intense competition between the vendors. What you see with Samsung happens because it's easy for HTC, Xiaomi, or Huawei to create a more compelling and/or lower cost phone. This is GOOD for the customer because the ASP of a smartphone continues to drop and very easy for them to switch.

No one can compete with Apple because no on has iOS. Apple has the freedom to keep pricing higher than Android phones because they have something they don't have. If you want iOS, you have to go to Apple.
 
I said this on the iPhone forum a while ago.

History tells us that technologies climb fast as the electronics develop, the great brands are then miles in front of the cheaper ones.

There is a MASSIVE gulf between a cheap item and an expensive item.
As the market and electronics matures, it becomes harder as time goes on to maintain the gap.

Apple, and others, every single year are going to have a harder and harder task to persuade the general public that a 600, 700, 800 900 dollar phone is needed, when the 100 or 200 dollar ones are getting better year upon year and closing the gap.

Screens will get as good as they need to be. People won't need more memory, CPU's and GPU's will hit the same limits as desktop machines have now.

And every year the cheap phones will be getting better and better.

Put say a Motorolla Android against an iPhone 3 and it will totally destroy it, in probably every single detail. and an iPhone 3 was THE best, and it's not that long ago.

I don't think history tells us any such thing.

The desktop/laptop market is decades more mature than mobile... and yet Apple has out-performed the market for all but one of the last thirty-something quarters. They don't seem to be having trouble "maintaining the gap" there, as you put it.

Automobiles have long, long since reached the stage where even the cheap-o models get you from point A to point B... safely, reliably, and in excellent comfort. Yet the high-end brands haven't gone away.

There always seems to be a strong market for high-end brands that deliver quality. I agree that, in the long run, these brands won't be over-all market-share leaders. But it looks like long-term profitability is achievable.
 
It's not so much about market share.

I agree because boasting about market share is just as crazy if not crazier than profit boasting (unless you're an investor)

What Android has is multiple vendors supporting it so there is intense competition between the vendors. What you see with Samsung happens because it's easy for HTC, Xiaomi, or Huawei to create a more compelling and/or lower cost phone. This is GOOD for the customer because the ASP of a smartphone continues to drop and very easy for them to switch.


Agree with that too but of course that's not what we were talking about

No on can compete with Apple because no on has iOS.

This I disagree with. Apple competes with huawei for profits and marketshare just as much as Samsung does. Using ios doesn't take away any of your choice.

Apple has the freedom to keep pricing higher than Android phones because they have something they don't have.

Eh not necessarily. Comparable android phones are priced the same, sometimes higher than the iPhone. If you're looking for something like an iPhone you're not going to settle for a huawei low end piece of junk.

If you want iOS, you have to go to Apple.

True but relevance?
 
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