Emerging iPhone contenders charted, compared by RBC

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
With Apple's influence hanging over the Mobile World Congress event this week, the Royal Bank of Canada has released a comprehensive comparison chart of eight contenders that threaten to steal some of the iPhone's customers.



Though the firm still sees the iPhone as solidly superior to its competition, analyst Mike Abramsky told clients he's still concerned about the risk posed to Apple with the crop of newcomers.



"Some -- notably Google, Palm, Microsoft, HTC -- appears to offer 'good enough' functional alternatives, including PC-like internet browsing, consumer UI/navigation, touch manipulation, messaging, applications/services, carrier functionality -- with alternative hardware form factors (e.g. keyboards, sliders, etc) that may appeal to some potential iPhone customers," he wrote.



Abramsky believes multiple launches on North American and European carriers, expected in the second half of this year, could force Apple's hand on pricing and marketing as the newcomers compete for mindshare and carrier shelf space. The analyst said that any new iPhone models -- referring to his research note from earlier this month -- could enter a "more competitive landscape" than the previous versions of Apple's popular smartphone.



"We see possible revaluation...on revised growth/margin expectations, lowered visibility, and renewed uncertainty re leadership," he concluded.



Abramsky isn't the first Wall Street analyst to suggest that Apple may alter its iPhone pricing structure when a third-generation model hits the market sometime this year. Earlier this month, both Kaufman Bros' Shaw Wu and Bernstein's Toni Sacconaghi issued similar comments. Wu cited sources who said Apple and AT&T were discussing the possibility of offering customers more data plan options, including some restrictive but more affordable plans, while Sacconaghi simply cited comments from a one-on-one meeting with Apple's acting chief executive Tim Cook that suggest the company is looking into "different pricing/price points" for the hardware itself.



RBC Capital surveys the crowded landscape of iPhone's upstart competitors



Abramsky, taking a much more bearish view than most other Wall Street watchers who follow the Cupertino-based iPhone maker, maintains his Underperform rating and $70 price target on shares of AAPL.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 71
    teckstudteckstud Posts: 6,476member
    It would have been nice if the iPhone had been included (preferably the first column) in order to actually compare.
  • Reply 2 of 71
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member
    Someone need to tell this guy that Apple makes other things beside the iPhone!
  • Reply 3 of 71
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Monday, May 12th, 2008 - RIM announced a $150 million BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Partners Fund along with RBC, Thomson Reuters, and several private Canadian investors. Can anything RBC say regarding iPhone be taken seriously by investors? They should at the very least preface anything they say in this regard with "We have a massive financial reason to see iPhone fail". When is the SEC going to investigate these analysts, who clearly have a vested interest in seeing certain stocks move in certain directions?
  • Reply 4 of 71
    boogabooga Posts: 1,082member
    Did they intentionally pick the photos with the ugliest angles and the most cluttered screens? Since the author was trying to claim that the iPhone is nothing special, I'd have guess the opposite. Or is the iPhone really so much cleaner designed than the others that it's obvious from just a glance?
  • Reply 5 of 71
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post


    Monday, May 12th, 2008 - RIM announced a $150 million BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Partners Fund along with RBC, Thomson Reuters, and several private Canadian investors. Can anything RBC say regarding iPhone be taken seriously by investors? They should at the very least preface anything they say in this regard with "We have a massive financial reason to see iPhone fail".



    Doesn't look like the Storm made the list of contenders.
  • Reply 6 of 71
    This article makes me laugh. It has been nearly two years since the iPhone hit the market, with no overly significant upgrade, and the industry is still trying to play catch-up. These phones aren't even released yet, and the only one at that list that can even half-way compete is the Pre, and that's only because they blatantly ripped off Apple's UI. After all the "competitors" of the past (LG Voyager, Samsung Instinct, Blackerry Storm), nobody has been able to touch Apple, and it looks like it's going to stay that way for a while.
  • Reply 7 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    Doesn't look like the Storm made the list of contenders.



    Is that because all of the phones that were listed are 'upcoming phones' The Storm is already out.



    I've played around with the Storm and although I love Blackberry - this thing is sluggish compared to the iPhone.
  • Reply 8 of 71
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by hittrj01 View Post


    This article makes me laugh. It has been nearly two years since the iPhone hit the market, with no overly significant upgrade, and the industry is still trying to play catch-up. These phones aren't even released yet, and the only one at that list that can even half-way compete is the Pre, and that's only because they blatantly ripped off Apple's UI. After all the "competitors" of the past (LG Voyager, Samsung Instinct, Blackerry Storm), nobody has been able to touch Apple, and it looks like it's going to stay that way for a while.



    Yep and I doubt Apple's R&D folks have been twiddling their thumbs these last two years either.
  • Reply 9 of 71
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    I say again ...



    When is the SEC going to investigate these analysts, who clearly have a vested interest in seeing certain stocks move in certain directions?
  • Reply 10 of 71
    price target of 70 lol just too funny
  • Reply 11 of 71
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by yalag View Post


    price target of 70 lol just too funny



    Don't laugh, if they keep printing this stuff it may just happen! Someone please drag RBC in front of the SEC.
  • Reply 12 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post


    Don't laugh, if they keep printing this stuff it may just happen! Someone please drag RBC in front of the SEC.



    Here..here. They do have a vested interest in seeing the market move against apple...
  • Reply 13 of 71
    markbmarkb Posts: 153member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post


    Don't laugh, if they keep printing this stuff it may just happen! Someone please drag RBC in front of the SEC.



    Totally agree with that.



    Didnt they say the same things about the iPod? It would never be able to compete? You can list all the stats you want (like 20,000 Apps for the Windows mobile phone ) and if the total package doesnt work as seamlessly, is it really going to steal market share? How many bajillions of iPod clones were there and doesnt Apple still have >70% market share?
  • Reply 14 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post


    Don't laugh, if they keep printing this stuff it may just happen! Someone please drag RBC in front of the SEC.



    You keep talking about bringing the SEC into this, but I'm curious to know what authority you think they have over RBC.
  • Reply 15 of 71
    wizard69wizard69 Posts: 13,377member
    These analyst seem to mis an important consideration which is Mobile OS! Nothing on the market is as well done even considering that Apple has a long way to go to call Mobile OS finished. Thus Apple can easily address the competition by simply fleshing out Mobile OS. They can do that by addressing the following:



    1.

    Implement the major Bluetooth profiles and make the facility accessible from the SDK.



    2.

    Work on the robustness of the Mail app.



    3.

    Widely implement syncing across supplied apps. Here I'm especially interested in notes which should sync across Mobile Me and Mac OS. While notes is important they really need sync implemented on other apps such as stocks. Otherwise the the apps are nothing but toys.



    4.

    Implement, with in Safari, the ability to view far more media streams than is currently supported. I have no control over what any one web site uses for movies. As such I don't want to be limited in what I can view because the format is not native to Apple.



    5.

    Item four above highlights a big improvement to Safari and the iPhone in general. Safari itself needs a bit of work though. Specifically in the way that it handles scrolable text boxes on a page. Or more specifically does handle. There is nothing worst than reading an artical with some code embedded in a scrollable box and not being able to scroll that box to read the code.



    6.

    IPhone needs a common read/writable storage area for apps and for access from the Mac. In otherwords a home directory that can be mounted when attached via USB. The purpose is to have a place for user documents, for storage (like a USB drive), for use across apps and to allow apps such as Safari to save. It is most frustrating to want to save a web page or other document for latter reference on a real PC and to not be able to do so. Basically this is highlighting the need for apps to be able to open and save documents outside the sand box.



    7.

    While Notes is nice iPhone needs a text editor. The goal here should be to support larger documents than Notes and to be able to properly save those documents to a publically accessible area on the iPhone as described above. One does not want to write long documents on iPhone often but it does crop up, further editing said documents is very important. Ideally the editor would have transparent access to network residing files. If the editor could do highlighting of HTML, the various C's, Python and various other text files that would be icing on the cake.



    8.

    For Caledar we need an alarm option that does not shut off until acknowledged. The big problem with calendar is that you can mis alarms simple because of ambient noise. So we need an Alarm Forever option.



    Ok these are just 8 ideas that come to mind real fast. The core OS does need work though. The thing is Apple has a substantial lead and can maintain that lead if they continue to push forward.



    Dave
  • Reply 16 of 71
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by DHKOsta View Post


    You keep talking about bringing the SEC into this, but I'm curious to know what authority you think they have over RBC.



    OK the cavalry if you prefer. I wasn't trying to have a in depth discussion about regulatory bodies simply pointing out the motives that RBC have for this the second such attack on Apple in as many months. Some one needs to do something to protect share holders from this sort of thing. Who is responsible to prevent share price manipulation then, please tell me?
  • Reply 17 of 71
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by teckstud View Post


    It would have been nice if the iPhone had been included (preferably the first column) in order to actually compare.



    I agree. How do we chastise the RBC dweeb?
  • Reply 18 of 71
    When I want advise on my tech purchases I always turn to the Royal Bank of Canada.
  • Reply 19 of 71
    I don't see much hope for WindowsMobile or Symbian, seeing as they're OS's with major legacy baggage. However, Android has a chance to catch up with OS X Mobile.



    It's based off Linux and Apache Harmony (alternative Java implementation), and uses other robust code like WebKit. It's built by a company (Google) with good programming resources and a proven track record in developing internet applications. The first Android phone showed a lot of promise, even though Android is still showing its use. It also has an advantage over MobileMe, because a user can already sync their mail, contacts, calendars and other data with Google's free websites.



    Also, I've read a couple of postings from developers who have argued that Android is *easier* to code for than the iPhone. It helps that developers can use Java, which is the most popular programming language. This means there will be potentially more apps sold on Google's app store.



    There's also JavaFX Mobile, which is a promising mobile app development kit. However, it's not an operating system in of itself, so it won't compensate for WindowsMobile's and Symbian's shortcomings.
  • Reply 20 of 71
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by robinf1 View Post


    When I want advise on my tech purchases I always turn to the Royal Bank of Canada.



    Unfortunately their 'tech' advice managed to do severe damage to AAPL recently and this may again, but hopefully not.
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