It all depends if you are just have a view into the companies that are making profits, which is the case in this article, or if you also took into account the companies which are making losses in the market. If the overall market has a profit of 100, and your competitors lost 50, you could have 150% of the profits (compared to the sector profit), or 100% (of the companies making profit).
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iPhone Generated Record-Breaking Share of Profits Last Quarter Despite Continued Sales Decline
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I got my iPhone 6 a month after its release for 649€. The iPhone 7 starts at 759€ ...
The old iPhone 6S costs as much as the new iPhone used to cost (649€)
Of course I changed my signature. Apple has changed nearly everything I used to love about Apple/Macs. I guess if I followed your rules, I should close my account and move on.
Sorry, but that's not going to happen. If anything, this is a useful support group for those of us who feel abused by Apple.
Perhaps you can use the ignore button, to weed out those of us with differing opinions.
Simply not going to knock Apple for making a profit. I buy their iPhones and Macs and have loved them for years. Yep they are at the top end of the price point compared to other competitors but for me, it's always been worth it.
On profitabiliy... well, I use to work in high tech and worked for a series of non-profitable companies. Note that "worked" in my sentence? Yea. Because all of them went bust or were bought resulting in all of us shmucks (sans the executives of course, with their golden parachutes) lost our jobs or were forced out. Pretty sucky if you ask me. I did work indirectly for Apple as companies I worked for were suppliers to them. There was a time, least we all forget, that Apple was very non-profitable and on the ropes to the trash heap. I wish them continued success in making money, keeping good people employed and hopefully, generating exciting new products.
On profitabiliy... well, I use to work in high tech and worked for a series of non-profitable companies. Note that "worked" in my sentence? Yea. Because all of them went bust or were bought resulting in all of us shmucks (sans the executives of course, with their golden parachutes) lost our jobs or were forced out. Pretty sucky if you ask me. I did work indirectly for Apple as companies I worked for were suppliers to them. There was a time, least we all forget, that Apple was very non-profitable and on the ropes to the trash heap. I wish them continued success in making money, keeping good people employed and hopefully, generating exciting new products.
You can only survive and thrive in a niche market based on vendor lock-in if you have critical mass. Apple does have it at the moment. This is really important for them.
For instance, I know a lot of US people have bought iPhones because their friends and family have iPhones and use iMessage. For this to hold (vendor lock-in), the vendor needs critical mass. This ensures the ecosystem gets apps, peripherals, and survives as a whole.
As I said, Apple does have it at the moment, but their market share is going down. If at any point the vendor lock-in arguments no longer matter (say, everybody you know uses WhatsApp instead of iMessage, as for example is the case here in Switzerland), they'll have a real fight on their hands, as people will start feeling free to look at alternatives.
The less market share Apple will have, the harder it will be for them to maintain their iOS ecosystem.
And market share we can discuss on much better approximations compared to profits, which are estimates of accounting figures of very complex companies whose internal arrangements we do not know.
Again, you're basing this on estimates made by some analytics companies, which may very well not be true, and I don't believe they're true at all, given the complexity of the companies involved here. After all, Starbucks reports a loss in the UK, even if it's overall very profitable, and since Starbucks UK buys coffee beans from Starbucks Switzerland and thus are forced to follow transfer pricing, it's much harder to do. I imagine it's a lot easier for Samsung and Huawei to shift money around their group in Korea and China respectively.
So I don't think the profits or loses you refer to are real in any sense. They're at best estimates of accounting figures, thus meaningless.
As for user experience, I don't think much of the iPhone user experience. As I said before, just about everything you do on the iPhone, you can do on Android but with fewer taps, swipes and clicks. I look at their pale copy of Google Now, introduced in the latest iOS, and laugh. I think the usability gap is quite large at the moment.
What the iPhone is really good for, is to make you feel good about yourself, which is great. Keep pumping those Apple profits, Tim's yacht needs it, and you deserve it
Apple owns the smartphone market ONLY when it comes to PROFIT.
I'm sure you will say GREAT. But last quarter, android shipped on 89% of all smartphones sold. At some point, these numbers are going to lead to application issues. Please compare software for windows to Mac.
It won't happen overnight, but this trend should not be unfamiliar to Apple's history.
I'm not sure why being so insanely profitable is so important to apple customers. Unless you're an investor, it only means you're getting taken to the cleaners and your products are getting worse in quality. It also means that foundations are cracking with no attention getting paid to them.
This is true to an extent. Apple Maps is still a joke. iCloud is good for backups but wouldn't want to use it for much else. Apple continues to drop products like monitors, airports, and other accessories that might've had a part in their early success.
I enjoy the products still but I don't really like the company. They're still second to none when it comes to devices working together. I'm not sure the company really understands its core customers though or understands the importance of them. These are the ones who championed Apple and helped make it mainstream. Cook's credibility is shot as far as I'm concerned. I understand his task is a tough one in trying to keep Apple's numbers going in the iphone era as that line matures, but delighting customers remains key as well as continuing what made Apple get there.
I'll say it again. Apple without the Mac is just a phone company. PC's are central to my needs. Mobile is just an extension of it. They really need to focus on Macs and macOS and cater to creatives. Something Microsoft is beginning to get.
This is true to an extent. Apple Maps is still a joke. iCloud is good for backups but wouldn't want to use it for much else. Apple continues to drop products like monitors, airports, and other accessories that might've had a part in their early success.
I enjoy the products still but I don't really like the company. They're still second to none when it comes to devices working together. I'm not sure the company really understands its core customers though or understands the importance of them. These are the ones who championed Apple and helped make it mainstream. Cook's credibility is shot as far as I'm concerned. I understand his task is a tough one in trying to keep Apple's numbers going in the iphone era as that line matures, but delighting customers remains key as well as continuing what made Apple get there.
I'll say it again. Apple without the Mac is just a phone company. PC's are central to my needs. Mobile is just an extension of it. They really need to focus on Macs and macOS and cater to creatives. Something Microsoft is beginning to get.
You are not getting my point. Yes they are paying willingly, but they are also making up for the customers gone. Point is that Apple cannot maintain this strategy in the long run, they will end up like Blackberry. Sales decline and high margins / profits do not go along, there is no justification.
Then I guess Strategy Analytics left out a huge portion of the smartphone industry.
Seems weird that they included Apple, Huawei, Vivo and Oppo... and forgot about Samsung.
I can no longer trust anything Strategy Analytics says. This whole article is wrong.
I never said that... so I can't comment on that.
I can say I buy iPhones because I like them.
I'm actually a member of multiple tribes:
iPhone for my smartphone... Windows for my computers... Google for my digital life.
How much Apple earns has little correlation with the quality of product I am getting.
Apple's profitability is important, because it shows that design can matter in the mass market. Apple has managed to sufficiently differentiate its products using hardware with great build quality, coupled with unique software and services to create an integrated user experience which can't be readily replicated by the competition. Instead of trying to study, understand, describe and teach the good that Apple has done here, people would rather deny that it is happening.
Yes, I pay more for my Apple products upfront, but they have more than paid for themselves in the form of greater productivity and fewer problems overall.
At the same time, I don't see why market share is so important to Android users either. I get that it's the only metric they can focus on to make Apple seem like it is not winning, but outside of this, I am not seeing what benefits this market share has for the consumers or manufacturers. They are not getting apps first, many don't even get timely software updates, the list goes on.
I use Apple Maps exclusively and I don't even live in the US. I find Apple Maps reliable enough for my needs. Same with iCloud. Nightly backups. Photo sync. If any app uses iCloud for any purpose, I will use it. And iCloud too has been smooth and reliable enough.
On an unrelated side note, the core of an Apple is the part you throw away.
You have done your part and made Apple the success it is today. Maybe it is time to step aside now that your role has been played (most beautifully too, I might add).
For whatever it's worth, I don't think Apple has given up on the Mac. They are just caught in a hard place since there haven't really been significant processor improvements, and non-spec related advancements like the touchbar take time to implement. So I believe Mac updates will still come, just expect longer and longer intervals in between.
And please compare software for Android vs iOS.
Very, very different story. Apple dominates in app store revenues and app quality, by a long shot.
Also, Apple may well push the "market share" button at ANY TIME, repositioning its offer. Apple could easily own 50%+ of the market if they wish, almost overnight. But this makes no sense at all, from a business standpoint.
Okay. You're overpaying for your phone. Apple is selling less for more. That is why they have all the profits. It's overpriced...like everything they sell.
Also this article is crap. The math is wrong. These companies just sit in a room all day making up numbers. Samsung is not on the list? Ya, okay. Junk math.
I think the whole premise is wrong. I've seen and heard enough of multinational accounting practices to not believe anything someone says about the profit of a small portion of such a business.
Apple buys components from Samsung (and others), and pays Foxconn to assemble its iPhones, and makes a good profit, in spite of Apple also maintaining its own operating system and a large part of its iOS ecosystem (productivity and entertainment apps, iCloud etc).
Huawei and Samsung use some of their own manufactured components (by other parts of the business), they assemble the phones themselves in the same low-cost geo where Apple has to pay Foxconn's margins, and use an open-source operating system made by Google, with far less effort and expense put into software R&D, compared to Apple. They don't need to, since this is what Google brings to the table.
So probably it costs Apple a lot more to develop and produce a phone. Sure, they make the profit by overpricing it, but I'd say a large part of it is apps, subscriptions and accessories. To a lesser extent the phones per se.
But that was the implication. As a customer, I really don't care if my mobile phone provider makes a profit or not.
Even if this mythical lack of profits was real, and, say, Samsung was going to croak in 2 years because of their alleged losses on smartphones, so what? Just move to another manufacturer.
Unlike with Apple, that's the beauty of the Android ecosystem. There's a lot of freedom. Buying a Samsung phone doesn't vendor-lock you into Samsung, so your next phone needs not be Samsung at all.
But no worries, I'm absolutely convinced this idea that Apple is the only one making a profit out of smartphones is complete hogwash. The fact that the Android ecosystem is so dynamic and healthy, both in terms of apps and devices, from low to high end, tells me that in general it's thriving, and there's money being made.
I'm hoping this is the case. I suspect it is. But there is also the flip side and I can't argue too much against the concern that Tim is like Steve Ballmer.
Apple has made a lot of investments and acquisitions in the past three years that indicate they are on the cusp of something new. Are they positioning themselves to break out big in health, home integration, AI and AR (possibly VR as well)? Or are they just trying to diversify into cheaper regions where the cost of doing business is much lower than in their US bases of operation, so that they can shore up their margins? Or is it a mix of both? If the emphasis is too much on the latter then they are in for a drawn out decline.
I find it difficult to believe that a man who was as close to Steve Jobs was would throw billions into investments just to cut costs to make margins higher in the long term. That would be a nice side effect but I hope there's more to these moves than that. Tim's a numbers minded person but is he completely lacking a sense of what Apple has been about?
Time will tell.
When your wife sees a Google Pixel commercial and says, "You know, I'm getting rid of my iphone. I'm getting that next time" You know there's a new wind direction about to take hold!
(Her less than one year old iphone's earpiece stops working from time to time and I must go online and find ways to fix it).
(Her less than one year old iphone's earpiece stops working from time to time and I must go online and find ways to fix it).
No I'm not. I'm freely paying what to me and many tens of millions of others (hundreds of millions over the years) represents outstanding value with respect to performance, features, support, and price.
You may not agree, or find the phone beyond your means, but try not to project your views onto a huge number of people who have been purchasing iPhones for many years and keep coming back.
Impressive from apples point of view.
Totally insulting from a consumer point of view.
I mean sure they need to pay the piper aka stocks but come on a little less profit and reasonable prices might go a long way to enamouring your supporters who are only going to get thinner on the ground the longer this goes on. I've already stopped recommending apple to many and i'm sure i'm not alone.
Totally insulting from a consumer point of view.
I mean sure they need to pay the piper aka stocks but come on a little less profit and reasonable prices might go a long way to enamouring your supporters who are only going to get thinner on the ground the longer this goes on. I've already stopped recommending apple to many and i'm sure i'm not alone.