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iPhone Sales Strong in U.S., U.K. and Australia, Weaker in Much of Europe
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I am well aware of that, what I referred to is that, eg, Verizon is offering the same plan at the same monthly cost for the Galaxy Nexus and the iPhone 4s but offer a higher subsidy for the iPhone (the subsidy is never explicitly spelled out but you can calculate it from the difference of the contract-free price of handset and its contract price). To my knowledge this is not the case in Europe (higher subsidies for the iPhone compared to high-end Android handsets).
Moreover, since the proportion of cellphones bought without a contract is higher in Europe (because a lot of carriers do offer cheaper plans if you do not get a new phone when extending your contract, while in the US only T-mobile offers that), the unlocked price matters a bit more in Europe, whereas in the US the advertised of contract phones matters more. Not that it should matter but it does affect purchase decisions nevertheless.
Yep. Apple are the only company that makes a profit out of making phones.
Imagine if Samsung were to beat Apple in profits? What a day that would be*...
...and speaking of lost crowns: LTD, did you see the news about WP-users having the highest customer satisfaction rating.
* personally, i'd rather see Nokia take this role, but that's unlikely for now. Samsung is better positioned right now, and if I'm not mistaken they're already controlling a third or so of the profits.
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Most certainly, which is why they do it.
I guess you can always imagine.
According to the 10 Windows fans who bought them? Sure, I can believe that.
"Unlikely", because Nokia is a sinking ship. They were already lame before MS got involved. Hopefully they won't be around to see the train wreck that will be Windows 8. Elop seems to be the weak stomach type.
I wouldn't be surprised by this.
Just seeing those first few words...
also, are we really going to bring up THAT picture again?
You guys can argue all you want I just wish I could afford a smartphone Android, iPhone, Windows or other wise
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It's only weak by THEIR choice. End of story.
My explanation.
For example, I am with T-mobile in the Netherlands. I have an iPhone4 with 2 year contract. This allows me to pay quite a lot of money to 'renew early' before the 2 years are up. Meaning, I have basically a 3 or 4 year contract suddenly, just to go from 4 to 4s. Why would I bother? Not only that, I can use their 'renew early' only once. Meaning when in 2012 or 2013 when I am now under a longer contract if I upgraded to 4s, I won't be able to upgrade to 5, until my 3/4 years are up.
They are locked, in most cases, I can't get an unlocked one and activate it with my contract, without changing my contract. And it will be around 800 euro to do so.
Why on earth would you upgrade in those situations?
This means my choice was not to go with 3gs, after the 3 came out, but instead wait another year, get the 4, with retina display and better CPU in a more mature market. And now I just wait and see whichever version is out when my contract ends in November 2012, before paying 200 or 400 for the newer iPhone, 5 or whatever one is out then. Then it will take another 2 years before I will be able to realistically consider upgrading to another version.
I'd love to chance and adopt early. I am being prevented unless I am willing to lock myself in even further, get a second account with new contract, buy out early, renew early, or invest 500 to 1000 euro for a few improvements.
It simply isn't worth it.
It's not because of Apple, unless they require these sorts of terms.
It's the telecom restricting you to guarantee them more money, or longer contracts.
They would actually get more money out of me if I had a per year contract, for reasonable money, and option to pay say 250 to 500 extra to replace my phone with a newer model. I would consider per year in that case, to renew. Now they won't get a penny until the new iPhone is announced after November 2012.
That's just my situation, but it's my situation, my experience.
My explanation.
For example, I am with T-mobile in the Netherlands. I have an iPhone4 with 2 year contract. This allows me to pay quite a lot of money to 'renew early' before the 2 years are up. Meaning, I have basically a 3 or 4 year contract suddenly, just to go from 4 to 4s. Why would I bother? Not only that, I can use their 'renew early' only once. Meaning when in 2012 or 2013 when I am now under a longer contract if I upgraded to 4s, I won't be able to upgrade to 5, until my 3/4 years are up.
They are locked, in most cases, I can't get an unlocked one and activate it with my contract, without changing my contract. And it will be around 800 euro to do so.
Why on earth would you upgrade in those situations?
This means my choice was not to go with 3gs, after the 3 came out, but instead wait another year, get the 4, with retina display and better CPU in a more mature market. And now I just wait and see whichever version is out when my contract ends in November 2012, before paying 200 or 400 for the newer iPhone, 5 or whatever one is out then. Then it will take another 2 years before I will be able to realistically consider upgrading to another version.
I'd love to chance and adopt early. I am being prevented unless I am willing to lock myself in even further, get a second account with new contract, buy out early, renew early, or invest 500 to 1000 euro for a few improvements.
It simply isn't worth it.
It's not because of Apple, unless they require these sorts of terms.
It's the telecom restricting you to guarantee them more money, or longer contracts.
They would actually get more money out of me if I had a per year contract, for reasonable money, and option to pay say 250 to 500 extra to replace my phone with a newer model. I would consider per year in that case, to renew. Now they won't get a penny until the new iPhone is announced after November 2012.
That's just my situation, but it's my situation, my experience.
lolz, yea because america is in such a strong position at the moment, infact america is rolling in it, aren't they?
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NEWSFLASH: Siri is still in beta.
As soon as enough Welsh, Irish and Scotts murmur some sweet nothings in Suri's ear she will get better at understanding what they're saying.
Is this supposed to be sarcastic?
I think that apple das to come up with something new, the new stuff lately has revealed to be ios5, so -notifications- -folders- -????-
Oh wow, that's cool, but it's nothing new. And Siri or not, sooner or later consumers will drive to other systems in a certain amount.
I like my iPhone because it's integrated, is my work phone.
But my Nokia N9 is innovative and it's an example of the "think different", in my opinion.
Let's just put some facts together. First of all, iPhone sales this year have still increased over the previous year. Some people already said that the loss of market share is due to the extensive growth of the smartphone market due to cheap Android phones. In other words, the market itself is expanding (low end and mid end are growing rapidly) and outgrowing the growth of the iPhone itself. This inevitably leads to a decrease in market share. If you really want to review the perfomance of the iPhone, you should take a detailed look into the high end market, because that's where Apple operates.
I think it is safe to assume that the reason for the decrease in market share is the growth of low and mid end Android smartphones.
This raises the question: why are sales much better in the UK than in the rest of Europe? What's do different? I'm not entirely sure, but I do know that providers in the UK tend to subsidize their phones big time, which means the price difference between an iPhone 4S and a cheap Samsung or HTC is not very big, thus giving less importance to the big selling points of the cheap Android phones, their price.
Subsidies however are not uncommon in other countries as well, but I do know that you can't find a country in Europe with better prices (both plans and phones) than the UK.
Second, from historical point of view, each country tends to have one brand that is popular in that country. For example, in The Netherlands HTC has always been very big, even before they were big in the US. Nokia has always been big as well, particularily in Scandinavia ofcourse, but also in countries like France and Spain. I think it is safe to assume that these historical prevalances play an important role.
However, I still think that big difference (16 percent points when you compare the UK to France) is a bit weird. The UK and France have their differences, but the iPhone seems to be almost twice as populair in the UK. Maybe the research itself is flawed.
However, I do think Apple needs to worry about this. They need to make sure that sales stay strong all over the world. I love the iPhone 4(S), mainly because of the OS, but main argument ('it just works better') becomes weaker and weaker as the competition continues to produce these fast devices with beautiful large screens. Combined with the big improvements made in ICS, Apple needs to create something real special in order to turn things around. They need to be ahead of the herd, not behind.
I think it is safe to assume that the reason for the decrease in market share is the growth of low and mid end Android smartphones.
This raises the question: why are sales much better in the UK than in the rest of Europe? What's do different? I'm not entirely sure, but I do know that providers in the UK tend to subsidize their phones big time, which means the price difference between an iPhone 4S and a cheap Samsung or HTC is not very big, thus giving less importance to the big selling points of the cheap Android phones, their price.
Subsidies however are not uncommon in other countries as well, but I do know that you can't find a country in Europe with better prices (both plans and phones) than the UK.
Second, from historical point of view, each country tends to have one brand that is popular in that country. For example, in The Netherlands HTC has always been very big, even before they were big in the US. Nokia has always been big as well, particularily in Scandinavia ofcourse, but also in countries like France and Spain. I think it is safe to assume that these historical prevalances play an important role.
However, I still think that big difference (16 percent points when you compare the UK to France) is a bit weird. The UK and France have their differences, but the iPhone seems to be almost twice as populair in the UK. Maybe the research itself is flawed.
However, I do think Apple needs to worry about this. They need to make sure that sales stay strong all over the world. I love the iPhone 4(S), mainly because of the OS, but main argument ('it just works better') becomes weaker and weaker as the competition continues to produce these fast devices with beautiful large screens. Combined with the big improvements made in ICS, Apple needs to create something real special in order to turn things around. They need to be ahead of the herd, not behind.
Not at all. Apple is is in the high-end market, Android is in low-end, mid-end and high end. Android has seen enormous growth in the low-end and mid-end market, but since Apple does not operate there it should not worry them. When the high-end market starts to shrink due to low-end/mid-end growth, then Apple should start worrying.
Switzerland is quite loaded with iPhones and Apple stuff in general, but I don't have any exact numbers. I do agree with what others have said: "iPhone 4S does not bring way too much to the table, so if you had an iPhone 4 previously, there isn't really any serious reason for you to upgrade". Many people don't care that much about Siri or the few new stuff that the 4S brings, so they will just go for the iPhone 4 because it's significantly cheaper and it still "gets the job done" quite decently.
Simply not a good enough reason. Siri should NOT be in Beta. They are charging $650 dollars for a handset (more if you are in a contract). When you pay that kind of money, you expect the damn thing to work as advertised. None of Apples marketing material states that its in Beta at all.
It just backs up what a lot of us have been saying all along: Its a gimmick added in to make sure that the 4
I had almost convinced myself to drop £699 on a 64GB 4s. This thread reminds me why I haven't yet. Why oh why can I no be told when the 5 comes out? My 3G is so slow it enrages me more than anything
Personally I'd say upgrade to a second hand 3G
You can pick them up real cheap too. Might work for you until the 5 comes out
Not worrying at all, because the statistics that you read is not factually wrong, but misleading and pointless.
Assume that we start with no smart phones, but with 100 people in each of two countries having cheap dumb phones.
Now in country A 5 people buy an iPhone, and 5 people buy an Android phone. iPhone has 50% market share in the "smart phone" market. In country B, 10 people buy an iPhone, and 30 buy a cheap Android phone. In country B, iPhone has only 25% market share in the "smart phone" market. But the reality is, Apple actually sells twice as much as in country A.
In other words, the market share numbers that were given may be 100% correct, but they don't actually give you any useful information. Even the headline "iPhone sales strong in some places, weaker in other places" is not in any way justified by the data.
If you want to buy a really cheap phone here in the UK, for making phone calls and nothing else, you can buy one for £10 or for £20, and they are really ugly. Or you buy the cheapest Android phone for maybe £60, and it actually looks a lot nicer (all prices for pay-as-you-go, no contracts), although the battery doesn't last nearly as long. Does Apple care whether you buy the £10 phone or the £60 phone? They don't. Does it affect their business? It doesn't. Only the high end phones for £200 to £600 affect Apple's business at all. If you buy a £400 Samsung phone, that is a sale that Apple could have made and didn't make. The £60 phone buyer would never, ever have bought either the £400 Samsung phone or the iPhone. However, by buying the £60 Android phone instead of the £20 phone, you reduce Apple's market share in the "smart phone" market.
But Apple had Amelio, who ordered everyone to the pumps, started plugging the holes, and hired a captain that took the ship to a safe harbour. Nokia's "captain" has a secret deal with the junk yard that wants to buy thousands of tons of scrap iron at the cheapest price.
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1. UK people buy a lot more iPhones than French people.
2. French economy is better than UK economy.
3. The claim that French people doesn't have money to buy Apple products can't be right
Apple covers pretty a quite wide range these days, with 3GS 4 and 4S. Its far from top-end only. Also, i think you're somewhat mistaken. First, Apple no longer seems to have the same dominance over the top end. Second, the top end itself is (eventually) a dying* segment.
* not like it'll disappear, but it'll be way smaller.
Having lived in the France, the cost of living is substantially greater than in the UK and it's shown by the high unemployment rate as well as numerous French (and Spaniards, by the way) heading over here to find a relatively decent job, which isn't easily accessible nor available in France.
As for #2, I never said anything of the sort and merely having words placed into my mouth to fit one's purpose and irrespective - that's not an accurate reflection of the standard of living of most individuals as made evident by the before mentioned aspects in addition to the lack of sales of iPhones and high-end electronics.