This isn't an accurate reflection of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus sales as this is a snapshot of July, August, Sept. The iPhone 6's were released towards the end of Sept. The numbers by end Dec/Jan will give you an overall reflection of the sales growth of Apple.
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iPhone 6 and 6 Plus Boost Apple's Customer Base in Europe, but Market Share Slightly Down in U.S.
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These market share numbers are more meaningful as cheap smartphones continue to become more powerful. Apple was able to dominate the high end when it made a huge difference. We are now reaching the law of diminishing returns from "higher than the last year's high end". Meanwhile, low and mid priced phones are plenty powerful and full-featured for most consumers. Apple's future is increasingly dependent on iOS as its primary selling point.
Trueness indeed.
Most modern new smartphones are sufficiently powerful. Most of the time it's just overkill based on the needs of the general public. I would say Apple is mostly dependent on its name alone. The Apple brand is probably the most powerful brand, if not McDonalds, in the world.
Is the following not valid?
Fact: Apple's phone sales are solidly increasing and have been for some time.
Yet you're telling me that Apple's US marketshare is decreasing.
Therefore, the total US market must be expanding greatly.
However, the above statement is not true.
Therefore, your assertion that Apple's US marketshare is decreasing, is false.
Fact: Apple's phone sales are solidly increasing and have been for some time.
Yet you're telling me that Apple's US marketshare is decreasing.
Therefore, the total US market must be expanding greatly.
However, the above statement is not true.
Therefore, your assertion that Apple's US marketshare is decreasing, is false.
Maybe people are more daring and willing to try something different? And then they see that it is a good platform and continue to buy.
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And that's all that really matters.
I am from Germany too and my friends and I all started out with iPhones and now I am the only one left with one.
It is amusing to see the comments about these numbers. They are meaningless.
Apple has new phones which they can't keep in stock. I am still waiting after 3 weeks for a 64g iPhone 6.
The introduction of larger screen sizes negates one of the biggest selling points that Samsung, HTC etc have had over iPhones. Apple wasn't a player for those who wanted bigger phones and now they are.
Apple's profit margins (and net profit $$) dwarf those of their competitors.
How long is the wait if you want to get a Samsung S5 or Samsung Note? An HTC 1?
The tech media and the market gurus (analysts) have an incredibly anti-Apple spin on almost every bit of news. They are usually so off base in their assessments it's laughable.
Apple has new phones which they can't keep in stock. I am still waiting after 3 weeks for a 64g iPhone 6.
The introduction of larger screen sizes negates one of the biggest selling points that Samsung, HTC etc have had over iPhones. Apple wasn't a player for those who wanted bigger phones and now they are.
Apple's profit margins (and net profit $$) dwarf those of their competitors.
How long is the wait if you want to get a Samsung S5 or Samsung Note? An HTC 1?
The tech media and the market gurus (analysts) have an incredibly anti-Apple spin on almost every bit of news. They are usually so off base in their assessments it's laughable.
Suggest going to Spain and pulling out your iPhone - instant curiosity - they'll all want to know why you aren't like everyone else 
It is the definition of a maturing market=> Consumers are used to the offerings which are generic, comparable between producers and exhibit mainly iterative innovation. It is then when producers start to differentiate into other territories: tablets 2 years ago, wearables now.
Ironically, and psychologically that statement is the herd mentality. There was a very long study done by a group of psychologists who were trying to document how marketing affects consumer choice. Even those that think they aren't affected by marketing, are. To oversimplify it, everyone thinks that they are being unique in their choices, yet everyone is "uniquely" choosing the same things for the same reasons as everyone else. And it apparently angers people to find out they are really not that unique.
On a sidenote, for some reason I stopped caring about marketshare or how popular Apple is. I'm enjoying my iPhone six, I will continue writing software for it and get paid, also enjoying my hand off functionality. Nothing beats answering phone calls on your computer, or answering SMS texts, or just putting your tablet down and picking up what you were doing on the computer. And most recently really enjoying my 5k iMac. Tried a whole bunch of different 4k screens, the iMac definitely beats them all. Not just by screen quality, but OSX's ability to scale things properly unlike windows.. Even ver 10, providing them a lot of feedback, hopefully they will listen and fix dpi scaling.
Must every Apple fanboy separate people into classes whenever these topics come up?
Seriously, who cares about how much money someone has? Yeesh, so you have money. You don't have to be that way about it...
Looks Like Both Apple And Android Are Making Money So What's The Problem?
Yes, Apple is making more, but someone has to be number 2. Besides, it is not as if everyone can afford an iPhone (or for that matter even wants one) so I do not get the hostility. Choice and competition are good.
As for the guy who claims that he has a $100 Android phone that "isn't a real smartphone and can't make texts or calls" ... hilarious how all of the people who have these horrible experiences with Android JUST HAPPEN to be Apple fans. Meanwhile the MANY TENS OF MILLIONS of people who actually own and use the things daily do not have anywhere near these problems.
Reality: the Kyrocera Hydro Vibe 4 is an Android Phone whose MSRP is $99 and can be had for less. It is LTE, waterproof, 245 ppi 4.5' display, 8MP rear and 2MP front camera, 1.5GB RAM, 1.2 GHz quad core Snapdragron processor and is running KitKat 4.4.2 (4.4.4 is the latest). In other words, it performs as well as an iPhone 4. (Except that unlike an iPhone 4, it can multi-task).
No, it cannot run heavy duty productivity apps, but to claim that it is not a more than capable smartphone for casual use (and for the record, the vast majority of iPhone users are just that) is simply false.
Incidentally, Google's long term strategy is for smartphones, tablets (and PCs) to be just thin clients for cloud applications and services. Right now the main barrier is cloud computing and infrastructure aren't there yet, so most of the stuff that you do on your phone will be based on locally installed apps. That essentially makes your smartphone or tablet just a PC with a different form factor and interface; not truly a mobile device. But when the hardware and software to support truly mobile computing arrives, hardware specs won't matter because all your device will have to do is connect to to the cloud where the real processing occurs.
That is Google's long term plan, which is precisely why with Android One they are HELPING companies manufacture and sell phones with iPhone 4 capabilities for $100. It really is not that big a deal with the manufacturers either. That is the way that technology has always been. It starts out extremely expensive and then becomes a commodity item. Remember when color TVs were a luxury? Look at them now. VCRs, DVD players etc. used to be hundreds of dollars, now you can get a smart Blu-Ray player for $40. As Google is a cloud software company, turning softphones into a commodity item so they can make money by hosting software applications and data in the cloud is their whole strategy. With that in mind, they aren't really competing with Apple. Samsung is competing with Apple, not Google. Instead, Google (who still owns Motorola) is knee-capping Samsung by coming out with better phones than the Galaxy S5 for half the price. Now all the Android manufacturers (except Samsung) are following suit by trying to make the best mid-range phones possible.
So Apple's game will continue to be premium hardware and competing with Microsoft in the enterprise. Android will shift further and further away from hardware and towards the cloud.
Yes, Apple is making more, but someone has to be number 2. Besides, it is not as if everyone can afford an iPhone (or for that matter even wants one) so I do not get the hostility. Choice and competition are good.
As for the guy who claims that he has a $100 Android phone that "isn't a real smartphone and can't make texts or calls" ... hilarious how all of the people who have these horrible experiences with Android JUST HAPPEN to be Apple fans. Meanwhile the MANY TENS OF MILLIONS of people who actually own and use the things daily do not have anywhere near these problems.
Reality: the Kyrocera Hydro Vibe 4 is an Android Phone whose MSRP is $99 and can be had for less. It is LTE, waterproof, 245 ppi 4.5' display, 8MP rear and 2MP front camera, 1.5GB RAM, 1.2 GHz quad core Snapdragron processor and is running KitKat 4.4.2 (4.4.4 is the latest). In other words, it performs as well as an iPhone 4. (Except that unlike an iPhone 4, it can multi-task).
No, it cannot run heavy duty productivity apps, but to claim that it is not a more than capable smartphone for casual use (and for the record, the vast majority of iPhone users are just that) is simply false.
Incidentally, Google's long term strategy is for smartphones, tablets (and PCs) to be just thin clients for cloud applications and services. Right now the main barrier is cloud computing and infrastructure aren't there yet, so most of the stuff that you do on your phone will be based on locally installed apps. That essentially makes your smartphone or tablet just a PC with a different form factor and interface; not truly a mobile device. But when the hardware and software to support truly mobile computing arrives, hardware specs won't matter because all your device will have to do is connect to to the cloud where the real processing occurs.
That is Google's long term plan, which is precisely why with Android One they are HELPING companies manufacture and sell phones with iPhone 4 capabilities for $100. It really is not that big a deal with the manufacturers either. That is the way that technology has always been. It starts out extremely expensive and then becomes a commodity item. Remember when color TVs were a luxury? Look at them now. VCRs, DVD players etc. used to be hundreds of dollars, now you can get a smart Blu-Ray player for $40. As Google is a cloud software company, turning softphones into a commodity item so they can make money by hosting software applications and data in the cloud is their whole strategy. With that in mind, they aren't really competing with Apple. Samsung is competing with Apple, not Google. Instead, Google (who still owns Motorola) is knee-capping Samsung by coming out with better phones than the Galaxy S5 for half the price. Now all the Android manufacturers (except Samsung) are following suit by trying to make the best mid-range phones possible.
So Apple's game will continue to be premium hardware and competing with Microsoft in the enterprise. Android will shift further and further away from hardware and towards the cloud.
Wrong:
in sales:
Ferrari (+/- 7350/y) dwarfs the other supercar brands: Lamborghini (+/- 2200/y), Bugatti (+/- 40/y), Pagani (+/- 15/y), Koenigsegg (+/- 15/y)
Maserati was linked to Alfa Romeo and went from semi-handmade to production line assembly.
Porsche has always been production line assembly
in Marketing:
Ferrari is still the n°1 dream car with their own F1-racing team, perfumes and so on.
Yes, their sales are two time nothing compared to car sales worldwide, but they are the competitor to beat in their marketplace.
I think it's a combination of phones are not subsidized as much if at all and the fact that their market is maturing and people are simply outgrowing the OS and the training wheels are no longer needed.
Yes, I actually just bought a 4k windows monitor recently. I'm extremely tech savvy, and it was still a nightmare to get it to display correctly. It's still not even close to ideal. Mac OSX has far better high-PPI scaling, although they also have the advantage of only supporting a few specific screens.
For those interested, I actually ended up upgrading to Windows 10 Preview (currently free). The 4k support there was far better. Although, be advised, there's nothing you can do to have a dual-monitor 4k/1080p setup display correctly. The windows magnification will make one or the other look poor.
There are also a host of other issues including connectors, refresh rate, GPU memory size, and even display quality. In short, I do NOT recommend an upgrade to 4k (on windows) within the next year.
Here are last quarter's smartphone numbers in millions of units according to IDC:
74.3 - Samsung
35.1 - Apple
20.3 - Huawei
15.8 - Lenovo
14.5 - LG
The "Others" category rang in at 135 million smartphone units.
Apple has been the #2 smartphone vendor by unit sales for quite some time.
And remember... Apple only sells $500+ smartphones while everyone else's units sales include cheap bargain smartphones. The fact that Apple can sell that much volume and have a higher price is actually kinda remarkable.
Also note that last quarter was prior to a new iPhone launch... so expect this quarter's numbers and next quarter's numbers to be huge for Apple.
Meh, not really. My wife is a Bankruptcy attorney and cell phones and cable bills are the two top bills even the poorest most down and out, deadbeat and even just unlucky people never miss.
Sure the iPhone is a nice phone but the fact that they still sell even at a higher price isn't shocking. People of all walks of life have discretionary income and the ones who don't manage money well not surprisingly often have priorities such as spending so out of whack that again, it's not surprising.
Even low wage workers will eat Ramon Noodles daily just to rock an iPhone.
That's an interesting post, but there are a great number of us that are not interested in storing the majority of our data in the cloud. There are massive privacy and security implications. While cloud security continues to improve every year, so does the capability of black-hat hackers. That's not even touching the issue of government agencies snooping online.
Although, I don't think you're wrong that cellphones will gradually become commoditized. iPhones ten years from now may have similar market share to the Mac ecosystem, providing premium performance for a premium price. I'd be just fine with that, assuming a sufficient app ecosystem. I may even get cheap Androids for the kids, or for a spare emergency car phone.
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It'll be interesting to see what happens as carriers abandon the subsidized phone model. It'll probably take 5-10 years to fully come into effect, but it's coming. I know I certainly would have second thoughts about spending $750 on an iPhone.
The good news is Apple dominates the market of bendable phones.
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That's because you can pay your cell phone and cable bills with a credit card.
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That's because you can pay your cell phone and cable bills with a credit card.
True... not all Android phones are cheap. But the cheap smartphones sold today tend to be running Android.
There were 230 million Android phones sold last quarter... how many of them were flagships?
And how many of them were complete garbage?
The problem with these "market share" comparisons is that all units are treated the same... a cheap $50 smartphone gets counted the same as a $500 flagship.
And there are, indeed, a lot of cheap no-name Android phones sold around the world, particularly in China and India.
