iPhone Drops to 15% Market Share as Smartphone Market Goes Flat

[doctor-don]

Ridiculous banter.

 

[trifid]

I don't think it has anything to do with distinguishing themselves from other manufacturers and everything to do with the insane $100 markup. If they offered an SD card I would consider iphone again. I love having the ability to just remove the card and add another 64GB or more of space. It's just unbelievably convenient and cheaper to boot.

Indeed, and SD cards have been improving considerably, better speeds, more storage, cheaper.

 

[sracer]

Agreed, you need to compare high end smart phones from the different companies for an accurate market share analysis.

Why do you think that would make it more accurate? And why does marketshare matter beyond the basic threshold that makes their respective ecosystems viable? Bragging rights?

 

[Mac 128]

Indeed, and SD cards have been improving considerably, better speeds, more storage, cheaper.

I would settle for Apple allowing you to export from the iPhone TO and SD card to offload media in the field, especially 4K video and 12mp photos that will take a lot of time to transfer to iCloud, even if it were available.

 

[diipii]

The latest data from research firm IDC reveals that Apple's smartphone market share dropped to 15.3 percent in the March quarter as the worldwide smartphone market fell nearly flat during the first three months of 2016.

Apple yesterday reported iPhone sales of 51.2 million during the three-month period ending March 26, compared to 61.2 million units and 18.3 percent market share in the year-ago quarter. Meanwhile, overall smartphone shipments totaled 334.9 million during the quarter, a year-over-year increase of only 500,000 units.Samsung continued to lead the market with 81.9 million smartphones shipped for 24.5 percent market share, down only slightly from 24.6 percent in the year-ago quarter. Huawei, OPPO, and Vivo rounded off the top five smartphone makers in the quarter as Chinese vendors continue to churn the top of the charts.

Huawei, which manufactures Google's popular Android-based Nexus 6P smartphone, shipped 27.5 million handsets during the quarter for 8.2 percent market share as it attempts to compete with Apple and Samsung in the U.S. market and other regions beyond China. Its market share was 5.2 percent one year ago.

OPPO and Vivo, meanwhile, pushed out Lenovo and Xiaomi respectively for the fourth and fifth spots on the top smartphone vendors list.

Article Link: iPhone Drops to 15% Market Share as Smartphone Market Goes Flat

Putting all your Apples in the iPhone basket is coming to haunt and not in a gentle way.
Apple now has to act fast and generate a fast, cutting edge and sensibley priced desk top computer.

 

[tdale]

Agree completely with this.

iPhone growth was largely by chasing new markets..

It started off a high tech early adopter product.

Then they grew to a product for the entire family. Wasn't just a tech savvy mom or dad, it was time to get an iPhone for the kids and grandma.

Then they expanded to every possible corner of the globe with China being the last untapped market to drive huge sales numbers.

Their final card was increasing the screen size to match the competition.

All the 'easy oil' of sales growth is gone. Upgrades will provide a steady source of revenue, but there are no big markets to conquer and seemingly no new innovation to drive the product. The built in obsolescence is probably their greatest feature. If phones had the same lifespan as a tablet, it would be a lot uglier.

Macs are static, little changes, it remains a relatively niche product. I want them to A) reduce pricing (as its not a great contributor anyway) and B) market the ecosystem. Get some PC converts to OSX, that will drag iPhone, iPad, apps with it.

 

[thomasguide]

Putting all your Apples in the iPhone basket is coming to haunt and not in a gentle way.
Apple now has to act fast and generate a fast, cutting edge and sensibley priced desk top computer.

You almost got it, just replace desktop computer with iphone.

 

[admob71]

Great. What are your recommendations?

Copy what Samsung did 18 months ago is a good start, and repackage it as new and shiny..
[doublepost=1461785608][/doublepost]

This hysterical overreaction to Apple failing to beat a previous YoY blockbuster quarter of growth is insane.

Apple is fine:

- They still make the very best products in every category they have entered.
- They still have same obsessive attention to detail that we all love.
- Nobody does more product innovation than Apple.
- Nobody cares more about design and usability than Apple.
- They still have the best customer care in the industry.
- They still make all the profit.

People need to calm down.

As for the demands for Apple to make a bigger commitment to the Mac, I'm sorry but that is a dying business. Yesterday's numbers show the Mac is now in decline like rest of the PC industry. Apple will continue selling Macs, but they are not going to waste a large number of precious resources on a business that has no longterm future.

And Tim finally enters the discussion. !!

 

[BusinessGuy]

I'm chuckling at some of the comments here and on some of the other topics. Comments in defense of the "Mighty Apple" containing words like "unfair comparisons" could possibly be taken seriously if they were coming from someone that had a stake in Apple's economic performance (i.e. shareholder, knowledgeable employee, etc.), rather than cult members.

I would be more interested in how Apple will use the market share information in refining or revising their strategies, and what potential impacts there could be on Apple's future product technologies, features and offerings that are important to me.

 

[kdarling]

I would really like to see market share for phones purchased by users that use them as a smartphone. For example, downloading at least two third-party apps might be an indicator; or setting up their work email might be an indicator. Exclude those phones that aren't used as a smartphone.

Many people download apps, but stats show that most downloaded apps are soon ignored.

For that matter, I know a lot of iPhone owners who mostly use just the built-in apps. Wouldn't want to leave them out of the list of "smartphone users". After all, built-in apps make up a smartphone, too.

So instead of downloads, perhaps a check of what apps they use. If just phone and text and camera, then not really a smartphone user in your concept.

Wasn't the original iPhone $399 with a contract?

It started at $599, then Apple dropped the price to $399 two months later (which caused an early buyer riot on the Apple support website).

After buying it, you needed to sign up for an AT&T contract to activate the phone (usually from home). However, hackers soon figured out not only how to activate without a contract, but how to jailbreak and then unlock the phones to be used on other carriers.

Now, the unlocking posed a huge problem for Apple. You see, Apple not only made a profit from the sale of the iPhone itself, but had made a background deal with AT&T to also get each customer's monthly subsidy stipend during the contract. That worked out to be $175-200 on top of the original sale, and maybe much more as time went on. AT&T didn't care, since the money was already earmarked. But it was important to Apple.

So while at first Jobs seemed proud of all the hacking interest, he turned against iPhone jailbreaking after carrier unlocking started. Because unlocking meant that iPhones were being used on other carriers which did not have a deal to send money to Apple every month. IIRC, unlocking rose to be over 20% of iPhone sales. That was a substantial hit on Apple's revenue. (Since then, Apple has opposed any modifications to its OS and lobbied to make mods illegal. Fortunately, the Library of Congress has overruled them.)

Thus when the first year's AT&T deal ran out, Apple switched to doing what every other phone maker did: let the carrier openly subsidize their customers, so that Apple would get a full amount up front no matter what happened after the sale.

 

[USF813]

Interesting coincidence since two year contracts are a thing of the past.

 

[tdale]

This hysterical overreaction to Apple failing to beat a previous YoY blockbuster quarter of growth is insane.

Apple is fine:

- They still make the very best products in every category they have entered. NO
- They still have same obsessive attention to detail that we all love. YES
- Nobody does more product innovation than Apple. NO
- Nobody cares more about design and usability than Apple. NO, well they care but they don't do it well
- They still have the best customer care in the industry. YES
- They still make all the profit. YES, but their profit is of no interest to me, its the phone that interests me

People need to calm down.

As for the demands for Apple to make a bigger commitment to the Mac, I'm sorry but that is a dying business. Yesterday's numbers show the Mac is now in decline like rest of the PC industry. Apple will continue selling Macs, but they are not going to waste a large number of precious resources on a business that has no longterm future.

Don't forget the expected bugs. Quality control is poor, nothings changed since Apple Maps release, same since then except nothing as blatant, just regular bugs. Thinner and lighter is wearing thin, pun intended. Its really no better or worse than many other phones. Many are tired re buying the same product.
[doublepost=1461785866][/doublepost]

We know MR forums are a microcosm of the real world and the posts here can be extrapolated to the populace in general.

Well, many, including me are taking a pass. I still have my 6 Plus after having upgraded every year. Articles on iPhone 7 see me probably keeping the 6 Plus. I don't upgrade my rMBP every year because the new model has shinier keys or is 0.5 mm thinner, and 28 grams lighter

 

[citysnaps]

So the S7's superior low-light performance, and superior focus speed is "worthless dingle balls"? Because it blows the 6s out of the water and it's something the casual user would instantly benefit from, since you know, low-light conditions are fairly common in daily camera use.

Apple used to be ahead of everyone else by at least a year. Now they are behind everyone else by a year or more.

Apple has played it far too safe, the market has responded.

Hah! You're not a real photographer, are you? If you were the first question you'd ask is why are the 6S and S6 so greatly underexposed (and the S7 nicely lit). Rather than the end photos being properly exposed and simply noisy, which would normally occur. Clearly a fake. The photos on the end were post-processed to make the S7 look good against the others. I've taken photos in low-lit bars and they never look like the photos on the ends.

Oh, but you say you are a photographer? Great. Lets see a link to your work.

 

[admob71]

Hah! You're not a real photographer, are you? If you were the first question you'd ask is why are the 6S and S6 so greatly underexposed (and the S7 nicely lit). Rather than the end photos being properly exposed and simply noisy, which would normally occur. Clearly a fake. The photos on the end were post-processed to make the S7 look good against the others. I've taken photos in low-lit bars and they never look like the photos on the ends.

Oh, but you say you are a photographer? Great. Lets see a link to your work.

So what you are saying is that any result where the galaxy is better than the iphone is a fake.. do.you actually believe this BS , every review on the Web bar none says the s7 camera.is the best on a.mobile device ever. Deal.with it!!

 

[citysnaps]

So what you are saying is that any result where the galaxy is better than the iphone is a fake.. do.you actually believe this BS , every review on the Web bar none says the s7 camera.is the best on a.mobile device ever. Deal.with it!!

No. You should be very skeptical of the test and the devices used.

 

[LordVic]

Hah! You're not a real photographer, are you? If you were the first question you'd ask is why are the 6S and S6 so greatly underexposed (and the S7 nicely lit). Rather than the end photos being properly exposed and simply noisy. Clearly a fake. The photos on the end were post-processed to make the S7 look good against the others. I've taken photos in low-lit bars and they never look like the photos on the ends.

Oh, but you say you are a photographer? Great. Lets see a link to your work.

you're clearly not a photographer either

There is absolutely nothing in these photographs that can prove / disprove that any post processing was done. In ANY way.

Your question also doesn't make any sense: All camera phones employ logical decisions based on sensor data when taking the photo. If all 3 photos were taken on pure automode, but all featuring different sensors, processing algorithms, and lens assemblies, Than All 3 photos should be different in how it handles the low light.

First, the cameras are going to attempt to keep the shutter open for as long as it believe it can to allow for as much light as possible. Unfortunately, the longer the shutter is open, the more movement gets picked up and appears blurry. Because of this, there is an upper limit to the length of time the shutter can stay open. When this upper limit is reach, that shutter is going to close, no matter what. For sensors with poorer low light sensitivity and ISO, this is going to result in darker "under-exposed" images, like you see above.

Since I don't know of any smartphone's that can adjust their Aperture size, only ISO and Shutter speed is possible to adjust. This makes it far harder for Smartphones to get well exposed low light shots.

Many smartphone software algorithms will also attempt to reduce noise in low light shots by sharpening / softening as well as keeping not artificially increasing the exposure time or ISo (the higher the ISO you go, the more noise you get)

So if anything, the shots on the left and right are clearly taken with sensors that are weaker than the middle one at detecting light. This has led to the phones of these two sensors to underexposing their shots. The S6s is slightly brighter than the 6S because of OIS allowing the shutter to remain open just a fraction longer. The S7 has increased it's low light sensitivity by making the sensor more light sensitive by increasing the sensors individual light bucket size (also reducing noise)

So if you were a real photographer, as you called out this guy for not being, you wouldn't be asking the question you asked either. You'd be asking, why didn't the two phones on the ends, automatically increase their ISO so that they could detect more light and have a cleaner / brighter picture? To which you can make a guess that the software woudl rather under-expose like they did, than produce a much more necessary noisy photo.


And no. I'm not a professional photographer, just a hobbiest, who have been taking photos with manual cameras since I was in grade 9 over 25 years ago.

 

[trifid]

Hah! You're not a real photographer, are you? If you were the first question you'd ask is why are the 6S and S6 so greatly underexposed (and the S7 nicely lit). Rather than the end photos being properly exposed and simply noisy. Clearly a fake. The photos on the end were post-processed to make the S7 look good against the others. I've taken photos in low-lit bars and they never look like the photos on the ends.

Oh, but you say you are a photographer? Great. Lets see a link to your work.

Did you watch the video? The screens in realtime are showing the superior low-light, or are you saying that was doctored too?

Suppose that was fake, look at the overwhelming reviews online from reputable sites all agreeing S7 has superior low-light camera. Is that a conspiracy too?

Arstechnica "The low-light performance has been greatly improved, making this probably the best low-light camera out there."
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/03/samsung-galaxy-s7-and-s7-edge-review-the-galaxy-s6-2-0/

Wallstreet Journal "The Galaxy S7 and larger S7 Edge have a camera that beat the iPhone 6s Plus in every low-light situation I’ve tested"
http://www.wsj.com/articles/samsung-galaxy-s7-review-head-of-the-smartphone-class-1457445927

The Verge "It's a world of difference the Samsung ... that f2.2 to f1.7"

A screenshot from The Verge video review:

 

[citysnaps]

Did you watch the video? The screens in realtime are showing the superior low-light, or are you saying that was doctored too?

Suppose that was fake, look at the overwhelming reviews online from reputable sites all agreeing S7 has superior low-light camera. Is that a conspiracy too?

Arstechnica "The low-light performance has been greatly improved, making this probably the best low-light camera out there."
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/03/samsung-galaxy-s7-and-s7-edge-review-the-galaxy-s6-2-0/

Wallstreet Journal "The Galaxy S7 and larger S7 Edge have a camera that beat the iPhone 6s Plus in every low-light situation I’ve tested"
http://www.wsj.com/articles/samsung-galaxy-s7-review-head-of-the-smartphone-class-1457445927

The Verge "It's a world of difference the Samsung ... that f2.2 to f1.7"

I'm not saying the S7 does not have a better sensor. But I am extremely suspicious of that particular test and the devices used in the test. I can go into a dimly lit bar, take a photo with my phone, and while it may be very noisy, the exposure is proper.

 

[trifid]

I'm not saying the S7 does not have a better camera. But I am extremely suspicious of that particular test and the devices used in the test. I can go into a dimly lit bar, take a photo with my phone, and while it may be very noisy, the exposure is proper.

The S7 destroys the iPhone and I've cited several sources, not just one, look at the Verge video review, that coffee shot, it's a world of difference.

Apple used to lead, and the competition took a year or so to catch up, now it's the other way around.

 

[atmenterprises]

I seem to recall Steve Jobs saying they only wanted 1% of the market when the original iPhone was introduced, which means Apple is 15x more successful than its original target.

 

[citysnaps]

The S7 destroys the iPhone and I've cited several sources, not just one, look at the Verge video review, that coffee shot, it's a world of difference.

Apple used to lead, and the competition took a year or so to catch up, now it's the other way around.

The coffee shot... Look at it critically. The sensor gain has been jacked up so much (or the exposure increased) in order to create a "brighter" photo that the highlight detail has been crushed in that white background. The colors also look strange, possibly (but not necessarily) as a result.

 

[I7guy]

Don't forget the expected bugs. Quality control is poor, nothings changed since Apple Maps release, same since then except nothing as blatant, just regular bugs. Thinner and lighter is wearing thin, pun intended. Its really no better or worse than many other phones. Many are tired re buying the same product.
[doublepost=1461785866][/doublepost]
Well, many, including me are taking a pass. I still have my 6 Plus after having upgraded every year. Articles on iPhone 7 see me probably keeping the 6 Plus. I don't upgrade my rMBP every year because the new model has shinier keys or is 0.5 mm thinner, and 28 grams lighter

The two 5s in the house are going on three years, I'm thinking I'll update them both but I won't know until I see the specs of the next iPhone.

 

[trifid]

The coffee shot... Look at it critically. The sensor gain has been jacked up so much (or the exposure increased) in order to create a "brighter" photo that the highlight detail has been crushed in that white background. The colors also look strange, possibly (but not necessarily) as a result.

Did you even attempt at reading the sources/videos I linked to or are you just trying hard to come up with excuses? You say you are a photographer, it's obvious the f1.7 aperture in S7 is giving it the lead in low-light photos compared to the iPhone's f2.2, it's not some exposure tampering as you are trying to suggest.

Either way don't take my word for it, go read the reviews or even better, try it yourself. Consensus is that the S7 is superior in low-light, period. Apple is behind in this and so many other things, it's no coincidence the market is reacting to it.

 

[admob71]

The S7 destroys the iPhone and I've cited several sources, not just one, look at the Verge video review, that coffee shot, it's a world of difference.

Apple used to lead, and the competition took a year or so to catch up, now it's the other way around.

Leave it fella, you are wasting your time. To some folk the God Phone will never be surpassed, no matter what!!

 

[citysnaps]

Did you even attempt at reading the sources/videos I linked to or are you just trying hard to come up with excuses? You say you are a photographer, it's obvious the f1.7 aperture in S7 is giving it the lead in low-light photos compared to the iPhone's f2.2, it's not some exposure tampering as you are trying to suggest.

Either way don't take my word for it, go read the reviews or even better, try it yourself. Consensus is that the S7 is superior in low-light, period. Apple is behind in this and so many other things, it's no coincidence the market is reacting to it.

I guess you missed my "I'm not saying the S7 does not have a better sensor" up above?

Since you didn't respond to my post about the highlights being crushed in the S7 coffee photo I assume looking at photos critically is not important to you.