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Where I work (Australia), if you exclude that the company phones are all iPhones, personal phones are mostly android. I am in the minority having a personal iPhone.
 
No it doesn't. It has about 15% and the share is going down.

There is one company, Apple, with 15% of the market... who makes almost all the money in the entire industry.

But the other 85% is collection of a hundred companies who barely make any money at all.

That sounds to me like the exact definition of Apple "owning" the market.

Remember... selling a bunch of units and losing money on each one is NOT the way to do it.
 
My first smartphone was Sony, second Samsung, third iPhone 4s, fifth 5s and now 6s, next 7s or 8. Android lost me forever
Android has never had me and until last year I would have said they never will, now I'm not so sure.
 
As a customer 91% of market profits is a bit repulsive in such a competitive market. As an investor, it makes me pretty happy to some extent.
Probably what happens is that Samsung Mobile buys OLED screens from Samsung OLED, at $300/pop. Samsung Mobile announces an overall loss, while Samsung Group as a whole is doing just fine.

There's no reason for Huawei, Samsung etc to actually report their per-phone profit, and I imagine this is incredibly hard to compute to begin with.

These numbers are meaningless.

The numbers that are meaningful are end-user prices.
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There is one company, Apple, with 15% of the market... who makes almost all the money in the entire industry.

But the other 85% is collection of a hundred companies who barely make any money at all.

That sounds to me like the exact definition of Apple "owning" the market.

Remember... selling a bunch of units and losing money on each one is NOT the way to do it.
Market share is the most important thing, by far. We cannot know how much money Huawei and Samsung are actually making on their phones, without looking into their books - and I'm talking about these companies as conglomerates, not only their tiny smartphone businesses. And this is not possible.

Apple doesn't "own" the smartphone market in any meaningful way.
 
Actually the Pixel has been selling well above expectations. It's been highly successful both on Verizon and online. I think they're expecting 4mil units sold by the end of 2016, which for a new brand, and at this price, and pretty much only in the US, it ain't bad at all.

Sure... 4 million units in a few months of a new brand of a US-centric model is pretty impressive.

But the earlier comment was talking about the Pixel becoming a "big deal" one day.

I'm not sure how that will happen at it current trajectory.

The Android market is over a billion units a year. How long until the Pixel is a majority of that? Or even a significant amount of that?
 
Sure... 4 million units in a few months of a new brand of a US-centric model is pretty impressive.

But the earlier comment was talking about the Pixel becoming a "big deal" one day.

I'm not sure how that will happen at it current trajectory.

The Android market is over a billion units a year. How long until the Pixel is a majority of that? Or even a significant amount of that?
Actually earlier comments were saying or suggesting that the Pixel has been doing badly and it's a flop. This is false. It did well above expectations.

I have no idea if Google will pursue a high market share. I hope so. At the price level they've chosen, this can be only done through product excellence and I think the Pixel is a solid start, if somewhat unexciting.

In any case, considering the quality and innovation coming from the Chinese manufacturers these days, I think the next few years are going to be very exciting for Android. Android customers should expect amazing devices at very good prices.
 
Probably what happens is that Samsung Mobile buys OLED screens from Samsung OLED, at $300/pop. Samsung Mobile announces an overall loss, while Samsung Group as a whole is doing just fine.
That's a good point, shuffling money between their various profit points.
 
Thats what my old company did for a few years. They sold less tickets of xy but at the same time made them more expensive to make the profit look amazing to the share holders. This only works so long ... eventually the customer got fed up with the continues price hikes and bought somewhere else.

Might be off but isnt Apple doing a lot worse in Europe for example where the prices seem to keep going up? You never really hear them highlight their EU market
 
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Market share is the most important thing, by far. We cannot know how much money Huawei and Samsung are actually making on their phones, without looking into their books - and I'm talking about these companies as conglomerates, not only their tiny smartphone businesses. And this is not possible.

Apple doesn't "own" the smartphone market in any meaningful way.

Well... it's "meaningful" if you're a company who cares about profits... which ALL companies care about.

You can sell a ton of units and have the most market share.

But if you lose money on each unit... what do you have?

Hell... we know Samsung sells the most units of any smartphone company... thus they have the most market share.

Yet they're not even on this chart!

Is that a mistake? Or could it be that the company with the most market share is not making the most profits in the industry? That sounds like what is happening here.

If market share doesn't make you profit... what good is it? How can you say that market share is the most important thing?

And yes... this chart is talking about their smartphone businesses... not the rest of the conglomerate businesses.

You wouldn't have a chart about the smartphone industry that also includes Samsung's heavy equipment business or insurance business, for instance.
 
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headline type a: apple making low/less profit --> macrumors forum response: apple has lost its way & sucks

headline type b: apple making huge/more profit --> macrumors forum response: apple has lost its way & sucks

hahaha
 
Well... I mean, did their cost of materials really increase that much over the previous versions? I would think not. So why would it be surprising that a product lacking significant improvements (sold at the same price) would yield higher profit?
The price is higher this year in Europe. I mean higher than what adding VAT would account for.
 
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Actually the Pixel has been selling well above expectations. It's been highly successful both on Verizon and online. I think they're expecting 4mil units sold by the end of 2016, which for a new brand, and at this price, and pretty much only in the US, it ain't bad at all.

It's a lovely phone too, we're waiting for them to be sold here in Switzerland so I can get one for my wife.
same situation, but I will personally test it for a long time before lending it to my wife.. ;-D
 
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5) Ask any Watch user if it's gimmicky. There are 12+ million of them in the US alone, selling more watches first time

The Apple Watch is gimmicky and mostly useless for most people. It's still obvious Apple have no idea what it's for and it does nothing well. 95% of available apps are dire. I wear mine out of habit but it adds nothing to my life. Nobody needs this.

- An Apple Watch user
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Apple took Samsung profit. Expect Google to take back some of it with the Pixel.

Naa. It's Microsoft who'll be taking their profits soon enough. The Pixel doesn't seem like a runaway success. It's too expensive and mostly a bit crap.
 
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The Apple Watch is gimmicky and mostly useless for most people. It's still obvious Apple have no idea what it's for and it does nothing well. 95% of available apps are dire. I wear mine out of habit but it adds nothing to my life. Nobody needs this.

- An Apple Watch user

I have to disagree, at first i wondered the same thing, but i've found that the Watch is useful for fitness, when i go for a run it's really useful, i also love knowing how many times in a day i've stood and calories burned. That's not to say that it's perfect, but i do think that it's a great fitness watch. It's also the first time i've worn a watch in years, i was not a fan of conventional watches but the Apple Watch gave me a reason to wear one and i love mine.

I think people are expecting the "Next big thing" to be on par with the iPhone, it doesn't always work that way, the Watch is a success but just not on the scale of the iPhone.
 
Start by firing Phil Schiller and Tim Cook.

I second and third and fourth this...Tim Cook NEEDS to go. He can run away with his big fat stash of inflated wages and stocks and go do something else. Because Apple will be better off without him.
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I have to disagree, at first i wondered the same thing, but i've found that the Watch is useful for fitness, when i go for a run it's really useful, i also love knowing how many times in a day i've stood and calories burned. That's not to say that it's perfect, but i do think that it's a great fitness watch. It's also the first time i've worn a watch in years, i was not a fan of conventional watches but the Apple Watch gave me a reason to wear one and i love mine.

I think people are expecting the "Next big thing" to be on par with the iPhone, it doesn't always work that way, the Watch is a success but just not on the scale of the iPhone.

Naa cause there's better, cheaper, fitness bands out there if that's what you're after. You're overpaying massively for an Apple Watch if that's all you want it for. For instance, my partner has had her Apple Watch Sport since launch day and she's selling it and buying a FitBit instead because she doesn't find the Apple Watch all that useful.
 
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Well... it's "meaningful" if you're a company who cares about profits... which ALL companies care about.

You can sell a ton of units and have the most market share.

But if you lose money on each unit... what do you have?

Hell... we know Samsung sells the most units of any smartphone company... thus they have the most market share.

Yet they're not even on this chart!
What are you talking about? Samsung Electronics made $4.4bil profit in Q4'16, even with the S7 Note debacle. Apple made $9bil.

Perhaps you don't understand the point being made. It's practically impossible, without access to the detailed accounts, to actually know how much profit or loss Samsung's or Huawei's mobile phone businesses generate. Since these are very complicated companies with lots of divisions, buying and selling stuff internally, we don't have a clear picture at all.

What we do know is that is very unlikely for them to sell at a loss.

In any case, this "Apple's profits are really high, I buy Apple therefore I'm really cool" argument leaves me extremely puzzled. It really flies in the face of reason to such an extent that I think it's a case of tribalism taking over the brain completely.

I have friends who have successful businesses and want, can afford - but don't buy - very nice cars, because they're concerned about the image they'd project to their clients. I.e. that their clients might think they're being overcharged, if they see you coming in a new Panamera.

If it were true that Apple sells phones for $1000 and makes $999.99 profit for every phone, while Huawei sells phones for $400 and makes a $300 loss per phone, I'd buy Huawei and pity Apple's customers, for they are getting $0.01 worth of a phone.
 
Naa cause there's better, cheaper, fitness bands out there if that's what you're after. You're overpaying massively for an Apple Watch if that's all you want it for. For instance, my partner has had her Apple Watch Sport since launch day and she's selling it and buying a FitBit instead because she doesn't find the Apple Watch all that useful.

That's where it comes down to personal preference, personally i use my Apple Watch daily and i'm happy with it, not everyone is going to agree. The Apple Watch isn't for everyone just yet, but i do think they will add more features over time that will draw more people to it.
 
how does sales decrease, profit increase, but prices remain the same?
They didn't raise iphone prices did they?

Plus, how come Apple are making more profit when other manufacturers are selling just as good phone as at same price point?
Vivo made more profit than Samsung?

This must be wrong
 
I have to disagree, at first i wondered the same thing, but i've found that the Watch is useful for fitness, when i go for a run it's really useful, i also love knowing how many times in a day i've stood and calories burned. That's not to say that it's perfect, but i do think that it's a great fitness watch. It's also the first time i've worn a watch in years, i was not a fan of conventional watches but the Apple Watch gave me a reason to wear one and i love mine.

I think people are expecting the "Next big thing" to be on par with the iPhone, it doesn't always work that way, the Watch is a success but just not on the scale of the iPhone.

Shame no tracker does much more than guestimate, wouldn't count on any figure to be accurate.
 
These profits will convince Apple's management that everything is OK when it's not. They seriously need to consider the price points of their products. I do not mind paying an Apple premium if Apple offers useful features other companies' products do not. But now I see a very highly priced mobile phone and ridiculously overpriced laptops from Apple, the ecosystem is looking to be very expensive indeed. Moreover, there are still annoying 'features' in Apple's user experience that I find annoying and sloppy (e.g., I have a 27" iMac with ample screen space and processing power, but the Finder window does not automatically adjust column widths to show file names fully. WTF is the point of allowing long file names when they aren't displayed?).

Honestly, I wish some third company other than MS or Apple was offering an elegantly engineered alternative for my computing and mobile needs. If there were, I'd serious consider switching away from Apple. Having stuck with Apple since the days of the Lisa (yes, I once word-processed documents using a Lisa), that is quite a statement to make.
 
same situation, but I will personally test it for a long time before lending it to my wife.. ;-D
You're a bad, bad man :) This kind of thing wouldn't work with my wife, she's very tech-savvy. She'd pry the barely opened package from my dead, cold hands :)

In any case I'm really happy with my P9, it's very unexpectedly the best phone I've ever had, and I've had quite a few. The Pixel is cool but I love the size, the design and build quality, the bokeh shots, the outstanding battery life of my phone. Plus a myriad of little details, like near-instant roaming network connection, super-glide screen, the DTS enhancer and its sound quality in headphones etc.
 
Market share is the most important thing, by far. We cannot know how much money Huawei and Samsung are actually making on their phones, without looking into their books - and I'm talking about these companies as conglomerates, not only their tiny smartphone businesses. And this is not possible.

Apple doesn't "own" the smartphone market in any meaningful way.
I would like to challenge you to elaborate on why you think market share matters so much, and to whom exactly.

Apple has a comparatively small market share, but people fail to recognize or acknowledge that this 15% market share still works out to a lot of customers in an absolute sense. More than enough to sustain a healthy and vibrant ecosystem. And since each iPhone customer on average has more disposable income to spend on apps and accessories, this means that the iOS ecosystem has no shortage of support from developers and 3rd party vendors.

This is why iOS often gets apps first or exclusively, why accessories and peripherals support iOS and tend to work better on iOS than on android.

I would argue that Apple owns the smartphone market where it counts. It has the profits. These profits ensure that Apple has plenty of resources to sink back into differentiating their products in meaningful ways that go beyond pumping specs. As a consumer, I get great apps. If there is a new toy out in the market like a drone, i can be sure my iPhone and iPad will be properly supported. The end result is a great user experience for me.

The other companies can keep their profitless market share for all I care.
 
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