Massive Android activations not viewed as concern for Apple - Page 3

You can buy any Apple stuff at an Apple Store. That's what I call PARADISE! We need no stinking Best buy!

I'm sure it's not altruistic, I'm sure the aim is to further their business, but the point stands. Audited numbers are more valuable than un-audited ones. Well defined numbers are more valuable than loosely defined ones. Google must have a reason for choosing to leave this number so poorly defined, because otherwise it's an easy marketing win to just define it.

Since when is market share determined by how many phones are sitting on a shelf collecting dust?

I am glad that Android is doing so well. I don't question the Activation numbers because it's irrelevant. For me, the story is that it's doing well. Why do I care? This will push Apple to do better and release better functionality sooner than waiting to drag out every functionality for more profits. If Android didn't come along, how long would it have taken iPhone to get hotspot tethering, or notifications ? Apple will likely improve on notifications and other features which will then challenge Google to improve, and the cycle continues. This is good for all users. IMHO, if it wasn't for Google, we wouldn't hear about rumours about an iPAD HD or an iPhone 4GS being released so soon. Apple cannot keep up against so many Android manufacturers releasing new products every week so they're doing their best my shortening their cycles. We get Apple products faster instead of having to wait so long.

Munster wrote 29 million iOS activations in the June quarter.

I'm guessing that Apple sold 18 million iPhones, 7 million iPads, and 4 million iPod touches in that period.

It's worth noting that Munster has a laughably poor track record. Anything he writes is likely to be wrong, not right.

It's a great story, and it's often repeated, but is it really true? Apple brought out the iPod touch even though they had practically no competition left in the PMP market. The iPad-2 was launched before most competitors even managed to their first generation multi-touch tablet. Over on the store front, they keep improving the Apple Store, even though it is not only leading in the C-E retail space, but in the entire retail industry. They continue to improve their music & app stores where they are arguably dominant, just as much if not more than their bookstore where they are definitely not.


Hot-spot tethering wasn't a technical limitation, it was a carrier limitation. Notifications may have some validity, but it's a classic 'post hoc ergo propter hoc'. Just because Apple's notification system came after Android's doesn't mean that it was driven by competition from Android, it's plausible, but it's far from proof.

It's just as plausible to say that Apple innovates as fast as it can in a market, irrespective of other participants, but determined by the value of the market. Perhaps notifications didn't get a major overhaul till iOS 5 because they were busy adding support for Apps, better iPod functions, tablet support, etc. Really it's not like there have been any 'ho-hum' releases of iOS, not from a developer perspective anyway.

You may be right that competition drives Apple to innovate faster, but it's definitely not open and shut.

Don't forget, Apple went from 2% to 14% of the smartphone market (from 2008 to 2009) with one model of a phone that sold for no less than $199.99 (US) and was usually only available from one carrier in each of the limited amount of countries they were sold in.

Android, on the other hand, went from 2% to 38% (from 2009 to 2011) by being free on dozens of models of phones and many of them are free (or nearly free) and are available from every carrier in every country.

Just the fact that Apple grabbed 2% of the smartphone market (from it's introduction in 2007 to 2008) by selling one model of a phone (that wasn't even 3G) for no less than $499.99 (US) and was only available from one carrier in the hand full of countries they were sold was quite a feat. Android didn't do that until 2009, even though it was available to all the phone makers for free, for phones on all the carriers, and was available several years before the iPhone.

My wife has an Android phone which she hasn't activated yet, lol. She uses mine whenever she wants to play Angry birds...

I wonder how such non-tech people factor in the activation counts...

I am 43 and returned to university after leaving the military. My wife is a Assistant Professor of Pharmacy. My "circle" therefore includes university students, pharmacy students, professors, as well as ex-military folks. I know many people in all walks of life and while the iPhone is very popular, I see many Android devices, plus a few Windows Phones as well (besides mine).

I completely agree. Replace "Android" with "Windows" and "iPhone" with "Mac" and this story could have been lifted from the mid-1980s. As could so many of the fanboy responses - "yeah but Android [Windows] sucks", etc.

I so, so much do not want to see Apple repeat with iOS devices the same mistakes it made with the Mac in the 1980s. I say that as someone who had a 512K Mac in 1985 - Apple was light-years ahead of the competition in both substance and style (sound familiar?), but squandered it.

Yeah, some of you are going to say "but look at them today - Apple's bigger now than ever". Yeah - and my response is that that's pretty much a textbook definition of a miracle. That Apple survived the mid-1990s is amazing - I'm glad they did, but that doesn't make it any less amazing. And but for one breakthrough product - the original iPod - they probably *wouldn't* be here today.

Your numbers are correct (though they're US only), but they're not good numbers to use for this comparison because they are population figures not sales figures. As such they get damped by the pre-existing population of smartphones, so fast growth of sales early in the smartphone segment's life will look faster than the same sales growth later. When considering products that come on an 18month contract, it would make more sense to look at sales figures than population figures.

Considering it from a sales perspective, Android went from 39% of smartphone sales in May-10, to 49% in May-11. Apple in the same period went from 23% to 31%. The two platforms are actually growing at roughly the same rate in the US, and within a few months they will be an effective duopoly in US smartphones - at which point things will get interesting.

Unfortunately we lack anything resembling good numbers for other markets, especially developing nations.

There are big differences.

• Apple is far far bigger in smartphones than it ever was in personal computers.
• In the 80s Apple was never the dominant development platform, which iOS is
• Handset platforms are less of a natural monopoly than desktop platforms were
• The pricing difference between an iPhone and a quality android handset is far lower than the price difference between Mac & PC in the 80s.
• DOS/windows was far less fragmented than Android.[/*]

Why marketshare isn't really an issue right now is because the market itself is growing very quickly. Read Asymco.com. As time goes on, people are replacing feature phones with smart phones. The smart phone market is only just now approaching 50% of current mobile phone market...

That means that there is at THIS moment, the potential for phone makers to double the number of smart phones in existence today! Apple is selling EVERY phone it can make. It could sell TWICE as many and still retain the SAME marketshare!

Edit: Actually, Asymco.com puts that tipping point in the US (when smartphones make up half the mobile phone market) at over a year away. So, there is a long way to go before we have to worry that Android activations are actually taking sales away from Apple.

Market share is determined by what the mindless masses buy (not a few elite cognoscenti, or the hard-core fan base). And if there are 5 to 7 Android phones on display and 1 iPhone, then yes a lot of the mindless masses think "gee, I get more choices with Android. Oooh, and I like the corners on this one better. I think I'll get it."

I love the iPhone, but a lot of you on here don't get that most people -- meaning most *consumers* who cough up *money* -- don't think like you do.

And a lot of us, who love what Apple's done, fear a repeat of the Mac/Windows debacle from the 1980s and 1990s. Bill Gates should be selling car insurance right now; Microsoft *never* should have had a chance to get the world working on a Windows-based OS. But when it became 5 or 7 or 20 various PC clones in different colors and shapes, and 1 Mac... people went for the PCs. (I know, I'm generalizing, and corporate tech groups had a lot to do with it. But the basic point remains - just because you or I love the iPhone and recognize its superiority, doesn't mean that it's guaranteed success forever.)

And that's still a senseless argument. My AT&T store has 15 Android phones on display and 1 Apple iPhone. Yet Android doesn't outsell Apple 15:1.

Your original argument is that the number of Android phones was evidence that Android outsells Apple. That is, of course, nonsense. One might say that the number o Android phones HELPS carriers to sell Android phones, but your argument that you can somehow determine market share simply by looking at the number of phones on the shelf is crazy.

The only way Android can compete with iOS is to float around a bloated unverfified number. And that's the ONLY way Rubin can secure his job at Google.

But who cares about 550K activations per day when Apple takes home the biggest slice in the profie pie when everything is said and done?

The first consumer Android phone wasn't available until months AFTER the iPhone went on sale, TMobile's G1 in late Oct/2008 , not years before. And that was on one carrier only. In addition the first iPhone-comparable Android phone (original Droid) wasn't released until late in 2009.

http://www.htc.com/www/press.aspx?id=66338&lang=1033

There's one little flaw in your theory, iPhone 5 (4s) is late.

I think competition drives Apple to innovate faster and to release functionality faster. If Android didn't show a better notification system, Apple might be content with leaving what they have because they are the only game in town and only improve it when they're ready. We know they're capable of delivering a better notification and could have done so earlier but resources are spent elsewhere they consider a priority.

I work in a company where we are easily the market leader in our space. Yet, we are constantly cost cutting and looking for improvements, because that's what market leaders do. Apple is the market leader in many spaces, but it doesn't hurt to have some competition so they don't get complacent.

What Apple needs right now is a $300 prepaid iPhone lite (or a iPod touch 3G that lets you buy data, voice and text however you choose). I think it's highly likely they're going to do this soon (as in September). Their strategy since the start has been to take power away from the carriers. Having an affordable, unsubsidised iPhone is the way to do that. I think Apple imagines a future where those carrier stores don't even exist. You'll buy your mobile devices from the normal retail channels (preferably an Apple Store) and add coverage as needed. SIMs will, hopefully, be a thing of the past. That's the really disruptive force here and they've only just begun. Apple knows how to sell stuff. Right now the carriers are in their way.

Soon's as Sprint offers an iPhone will be the day the EVO goes in the can.

I am SUSPICIOUS too!

THIS FORUM NEEDS LIKE + THUMBS UP = RATING BUTTONS!!! So that I could LIKE and Push Up the most Liked Comments!!! It'd be nice to have such Buttons, as borrowed from YouTube, cause reading through 3-4 or more Pages of Comments is not always realistic!!!

I LIKE this Comment that I am Replying too, cause I agree with it!!!

Adding Twitter Button per each Comment might be nice too!!! But then one can just Twitt a Page, and indicate a specific Post #.... Or double-click it, and Twitt that Specific Post Page... A work around

I hope Apple Insider is reading this Comment!!! TGIF to all!

And not only in the 90's with applications, OS X has lacked in games until not so long time ago.

A very important part of his argument was that Android is a free OS and available for any hardware vendor on any service network. Apple doesn't fit that criteria, so there's no way to apply the same standard. But we could discuss other metrics to define success/failure for iOS. One such metric could be the revenue generated by iPhone/iPad sales relative to that of their respective markets. That metric indicates that iOS is anything but a failure, and it seems like a compelling metric to me.

Thompson

I have a question. Has Google ever announced how much money they have payed out to developers in their marketplace? I know they have more ad supported apps than paid, but the free apps still have to be paid for the advertising revenue they generate. Who cares if they have 20x the set of eyeballs if the developer isn't getting paid as much or as regularly?

You can think it, I can think it, it may even be true - I'm just saying that there's no overwhelming mountain of evidence indicating it. Whenever 'everybody knows' something for which there is no evidence, it's a good time to be sceptical.

I did not know iPhone 5 was late. When did Apple say they were releasing it ?

English is not my tongue, can you explain me what it means being "difficult and contrarian"?


Funny, I will say no :P

When I argue something, I can be right or wrong but I really believe what I say

There's a bit of historical revisionism at work here. Apple released the Mac into an existing market already dominated by the IBM-PC, so it's not clear that they squandered anything you could actually put your finger on. The market was a monoculture already, an artificial construct built on IBM's lack of foresight and Microsoft's dumb luck. The smartphone market is far more diverse now than the PC market ever was back in the '80s.

I'm not arguing that Android won't harm Apple's sales of the iPhone (little doubt it has already). What I am saying is, there's no reason to expect a similar monoculture to emerge from this market. Nobody has to win it all, and nobody is likely to do so.

Ballmer was going on the other day about how 350 millions Windows 7 licenses were sold compared to 20 million for Snow Leopard. But Apple seems to be doing quite well in spite of those figures. Market share seems to be all about bragging rights and Apple's failure to dominate market share in any single area doesn't seem to be hurting the compnay one single bit. In a global economy I don't think market share means what it used to mean anymore.

Assuming it ever meant what it used to mean. In the end, companies and investors really only care about earnings.

Uggh...every time you get an article on Android activations, you get the following arguments:

1) The numbers are false. There's no independent source. And I haven't seen that many Android around.

Of course. Nobody ever questions Apple's numbers and whether they are lieing (I don't think they are.). I'd like someone who thinks the numbers are lies to tell me how Google can get away with lieing to investors. And the idea that iPhone fans keep a look out for Android phones is rather comical.

2) Android are cheap.

An odd claim given that in most places Androids on contract are generally about the same price as an iPhone. Sometimes they are even more expensive. But they are certainly cheaper than iPhones, in markets where users tend to buy phones outright.

3) It's all BOGO.

Another odd claim. To start with, that's largely a US practice. And the US, while a good portion of Android sales, could never have enough subs on BOGO to really impact activations that much.

4) They're all geeks and nerds who want to fiddle with phones.

There really must be a lot of geeks and nerds in the world then. And other stereotypes must be true too. Hence forth, any guy sporting an iPhone is probably gay to me. And anybody sporting a Blackberry must have money. And if he's got an Atrix, he must be a nerd, living in his parents' basement. Would that make any sense?

5) They're all poor.

They might be marginally less wealthier than the average iPhone user. But anybody sporting a smartphone (even if it's a BB) of any kind is probably a lot better off than somebody using an ordinary dumbphone. I doubt people who are truly poor could actually afford smartphones with data plans.

In reality, these kinds of pissing matches are utterly useless. People use what's best for them. Just look at recent stats that show that the iPad is the most popular tablet among Android smartphone users.

And while Apple doesn't seem to have that much of an issue with slipping market share, it's often the fans that seem to turn this thing into a war with near-religious overtones. In reality, with the smartphone market growing so quickly, there's certainly room for several operating systems.

I will posit that you are simply noticing iDevices more, rather than actually seeing more devices.

Here's the thing, a Sony Ericsson, a Samsung Galaxy S and an HTC Desire, don't all look the same. Plus, none are as well known as an iPhone. So, of course, you'll notice the iPhone in the bunch and not the rest.

But just because you don't notice them, doesn't mean they're not there.

+1

This has long been my view. Competition is good for the consumer. And if you're a consumer who's not sticky to one brand, all the better for you because you can take the best from any of those pitching their wares to you.

Just that (Activations != Sales). The question is "What does 'Activations' mean?"

Thing not proved.

And as Google has said that upgrading the os doesn't count as activation, changing the SIM or "resetting" if resetting is factory reset or flashing doesn't count as activation.

Of course activations =/= sales. Google does not sell phones. Android OEMs do. So the only thing Google can discuss are activations. And despite the conspiracy theories, every time any Google exec has been asked, they've been clear that these are unique devices that use Google services. And they count them through the Android market. I don't get what's so difficult about talking about the number of unique devices logging on to the market for the first time.

Thats absolutely not the case. The market had many players. In 1985 the biggest selling OS, and one on a very huge trajectory, was the Commodore OS. It fell off a cliff that year. The Osborne had fallen off a cliff a few years before. Across the pond the BBC micro and the Sinclair were selling like hot cakes. They were to disappear by the end of the 80's.
The two more expensive players, IBM and APPle, survived. I say IBM because most PC's sold were IBM, not "clones".

It was the 90's, as Jobs himself has pointed out, where Apple refused to trade margins for market share. The IIFX cost from $9000 to $12000 when it was released in 1990. It was discontinued in 1992. Someone else can work out the index linked 2011 dollars for that - I would guess the top model sold at the modern equivalent of $18000. At least.

Why do people mis-remember the 80's? Who knows? Any ideas?

The story of the 80's is relevant to the present in one way though. The cheap manufacturers fell away, as I said. On that note: here is the latest report from Sony Ericcisson


It is part of a larger conglomorate, of course, but the company which sells 11% of the Android market ( in value?) is loss making!!

Jebus! This is the fastest commodificaiton in history, there is nothing to differentiate low to medium-high level Android's machines from each other. The surivors will be the most cut throat. In the long term this will reduce the number of phones available in shops, and Apple willl produce more models, so the swamping of iPhones won't last.

( Also to those of you who wonder why producing your own OS, I mean BADA etc, makes sense. Thats why. To differentiate from the mass and make higher margin).

At the moment Apple is not really competing at medium and low end. A cheap world phone will see where we really are . It may not reverse the trend but it would stall it.

I dont believe that Google are lying, however Apple is a manufacturer and they have to give exact figures. It's less certain with Google, since they dont obviously make any money from direct Android "sales".


They are about half as cheap. The 3GS is £400 here in the UK. Modern Androids sell at £200. that is the main reason for Android's commodification of the market.


That's probably correct. BOGO is an excuse.


Correct. There aren't enough nerds in the world.


Actually, given 2) the difference in income is probably quite large, particularly in non-Western countries. I think that Apple should address this.



I think APple does care - they dont want to repeat the 90's.

Yes, if they use the UUID then it's fail safe. They are real activated once only Android phones.