Apple CEO Tim Cook on Android growth: 'Success is not making the most' - Page 3

Likely a Samsung....

The largest market segment that remains untapped is the developing world, but let's ignore that since we only want to build luxury products. We'll come back and take another look at China in 20 years or so when they might be able to afford our bling. Of course in the mean time that market will be completely dominated by Samsung and Android.

 

I know it is sort of cliché but it does seem like déjà vu all over again. Mac was elegant and sophisticated in the 80s especially when compared to DOS but by the time Windows 95 came along with most of the same qualities, the Internet, Photoshop and Office, Dell's were generally perceived as just as good but less costly than Macs. It was game over.

 

So yes it did work out well for Dell...for awhile, but they were unable to adapt to a changing market place. If Apple fails to recognize the changing landscape, the same fate awaits them.

 

I would hate to see that happen again, which it very well could if Apple loses in China.

Edited by mstone - 2/27/13 at 1:51pm

tim has nothing to do with it. Apple has nothing to do with it.

since they have 140 billion ready to go, the most flexible supply chain, the best products on their respective categories and are the only ones innovating since 98, i believe you are wrong.

 

you know, if the situation demands it, Apple is in the best position to turn on their xerox printers too.

 

I couldn't have said it better myself.  Normally I don't reply to a post to agree with it but I'm making an exception this time.  I think people are forgetting that the iPad mini has similar specs as the iPad 2 yet the iPad 2 still sells for $400 but I don't hear anyone complaining that iPad 2 is overpriced.  What gives?  If anything the mini should cost more more, not less than the 2 just because of the extra convenience of the smaller form factor.  But as usual, people are comparing apples (literally, Apple) with oranges.  Actually a more appropriate fruit would be lemons instead of oranges.

 

Same thing with the iPhone - there must be at least 2-3 news/blog stories per week suggesting Apple should release a "cheaper" iPhone - because apparently selling 48 million "expensive" iPhones in one quarter isn't enough.  That isn't just a terrible idea because it would cheapen the brand, it's also a terrible idea because they're still selling these "expensive" iPhones hand over fist.  Why in the world would they want to make LESS money selling cheaper phones? There's no way they'll make up for the lower margins in volume.  What these geniuses fail to understand is that there's absolutely zero incentive for Apple to do this and that selling high margin products and making money is actually a good thing, whereas selling a product at cost and making no money on it is not a good thing (gee what a concept!).  And then to show their complete lack of understanding of even basic supply&demand, let alone Apple's business model, they claim that there's a greater "demand" for cheaper phones, particularly in developing markets like China & India.  How does that make any sense, how can you have a demand for a certain price???  The price IS the demand!  What is so hard about this concept to understand - if there wasn't as much demand for the existing iPhones then they would have already been selling at a lower price (in fact Apple did drop the price of the iPhone significantly just a couple of months after it was originally introduced).  The fact that people are buying cheaper phones is tantamount to saying those phones are in lower demand, not higher.  When are they going to understand that if Apple ever releases something less expensive than an iPhone then it won't be a "cheaper" iPhone but rather another form factor like an iPhone mini, iWatch, whatever?  Well, at this point, probably never.

 

But I've given up the idea that the majority of these folks are capable of reason.  After all some of them complain that Apple should return cash to the share holders but that they should also grow their EPS at the same time, that is, they should magically both grow and shrink their cash balance at the same time! LOL!  Imagine if Apple returned something like 50 billion and had to declare a massive net loss in one quarter - everyone would be declaring that Apple would be going bankrupt soon!

You are about 10,000 rems of RDF over save dosage level.

 

Selling a whole lot of cheap handsets with low margins equals making less money, just ask Nokia, look where a decade of marketshare dominance got them.

 

In 2006 Symbian had 60% share of the "smartphone" market, Nokia was selling half a billion handsets a year.

Edited by hill60 - 2/27/13 at 2:21pm

The difference was that there was no cell phone handset ecosystem back then. All cell phones were compatible regardless of manufacturer. Now it is a platform war not a handset war.

That's incorrect, Palm, WinMo and BB phones were not compatible.

 

The one thing Apple has proved beyond the shadow of a doubt is qualifiers such as "faster", "first", "cheaper", etc. are irrelevant, only "better" matters.  Faster only matters if all else is equal, that is if one company puts out some crap for sale, another company puts out some similar crap for sale and the one who comes out first makes more money, at least for a little while - not sustainable for sure.  After all weren't people complaining that Apple didn't actually invent anything, at least in the past decade or so?  It's true, they didn't come out with the first MP3 player, they didn't come out with the first smart phone, they didn't even come out with the first tablet.  They have always been behind the competition, at least in raw specs, this is not a new trend.  But in the end that didn't matter, only better mattered.

 

So what you're saying is diametrically opposed to what they should and are already doing.  They most certainly don't need to go faster, only better.

 

I don't know if I'd agree with that.  Apple's devices are significantly more expensive than competitors devices, especially when accounting for subsidies (apple tends to get a higher subsidy than other companies).  I recently switched from a contract plan to a pay as you go plan because a) my iphone went for a swim and b) pay as you go plans are SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than traditional contracts in the US.  For $40 a month (tax included), I can get unlimited text/voice and 250MB of data at 4G speeds (data over that is just slower), which is what, half of what I'd pay elsewhere?

 

With this in mind you start looking at phones.  I chose to get a Galaxy S3 phone that I paid $400 for (brand new no contracts attached).  Had I wanted to get an iphone, lets compare the price.  An iphone 5 (assuming it would work with my carrier) unlocked costs $650, that's $250 more than the (nearly) top of the line android phone that I just bought.  And what extra features would I be getting with the 5 over the galaxy s3?  I'll tell you one thing, being trapped in the iOS ecosystem is not worth paying $250 extra dollars.  And some might claim the iphone 5 is a better phone, so compare it to last years iphone... Okay, an unlocked iPhone 4GS is $550, that's $150 more than I could get the s3, doesn't sound worth it to me.  In fact, the only apple phone that would be at a comparable price is the iphone 4, which is a 2 and a half year old phone.  

 

Seriously, it doesn't take a genius to realize that the galaxy S3 is a better phone than then iPhone 4.  And while most of the US is still on contract plans, this isn't the case in the rest of the world.  In the rest of the world, going apple involves a SIGNIFICANT apple tax.  Considering android is just about as good as iOS, this tax is not worth it for many people. 

 

That said, it still doesn't make sense for apple to sell a cheaper iphone to cater toward people like me.  They currently convince millions of people and carriers to pay hundreds of dollars more for an iphone than a comparable android phone, and therefore it makes no sense to sell phones cheaper.  If they weren't selling so many millions of phones, I'd think apple would have to compete in the "cheaper" phone market. It just makes me question why so many people are willing to pay so much more to have an apple logo on their device, but I must say, if you've got the golden brand you should milk it for all it's worth, it might not pull in so much later.

 

Phi

Yes a decade ago was about the time that those devices started evolving into phones. Previously BB was email only and the other two were PDA only. I was referring to Nokia's decades of dominance starting earlier when the only things that handsets did was make calls.

 

Symbian.

WinMo.

Palm.

 

Were the major "smartphone" platforms back then, they were a smaller part of the overall market, they all had developers working on native applications as well as compatibility with Java based applications, which also spread across to cover feature phones.

 

That was before Google forked Java.

 

This is an interesting read.

Success is selling to your capacity, at the margin you deem sustainable by your clientele. When those numbers start to slip, you're not meeting the ideological perceptions of your client. Keep blabbing, Mr. Cook. The market judges your performance, and thus-far yours sucks. I realize it doesn't matter to you, because you've been compensated for the performance of your predecessors.

Apple's board of directors should answer to to that.

There were definitely platforms with 3rd-party apps that were not compatible across OSes but they were all poor OSes with a poorly defined ecosystem with vendors putting little to no effort into retention by SW which is why they feel so easily when Apple arrived.

I'm sure they do, though at this point there's very little they can do.  With Samsung splitting away more and more from the pack and becoming more and more a competitor to Google, things don't look so rosy going forward.  It's kind of ironic that Google now has to compete with a version of it's own OS, isn't it?  But they've only got themselves to blame, they're the only reason they're now in this mess.  They've "sold their soul" so to speak by giving Android away and now it comes back to bite them in the ass.  Sure, it looked good for a while and it seemed like Android was taking the world by storm, but now increasingly Android doesn't mean anything anymore.  They might as well just call it OS, it's shorter.  Saying you have a phone with Android these days is almost like saying you've got a friend with hair.

Sorry, you've got the wrong universe.

 

I was referring to the decade preceding 2006, the year before the iPhone changed everything, the beginning of Nokia's downfall, 2006 was their greatest year, their marketshare dominance was unassailable, even as Samsung was stalking them, just as Nokia had stalked Motorola a decade before.

 

Out of nowhere the iPhone changed it all, no concern about marketshare, only taking the cream off the top, an extremely effective strategy that is still working today, in the words of Jerry Maguire "Show me the money", Apple has delivered in droves to become America's most profitable company.

 

Apple needs to hold their ground, thinking differently to the scum who are only interested in manipulating stock prices in order to line their pockets with the money of the suckers who swallow their tripe.

From the customer's perspective, "You had me at hello."

 

I don't think that many don't realize that new form factors could still be profitable, I haven't seen a lot of arguments against different form factors.  What's more astounding is how many think that a cheap, money losing business strategy in the form of a "cheap iPhone" is what Apple needs right now.

Yeah!  Tim should have given those shareholders a good whipping and make them buy back all those shares they sold and drive the stock back up to $700!  What was he thinking?  This guy is good for nothing! /S

 

 Are you BIND?! 

 

1) Cook said quantity does not equate to success. Apple sells less but makes more profit. By any measure that is smarter. If you disagree, please become a Sammy fan and believe in selling more and making less. 

 

2) King of the hill always gets attacked. That's life man! 

 

3) what market share? Oh, the bottom tier of low end phones that a) has much less margin b) cheaper products always have more issues which means more support needed c) you erode the Apple's status as being a high end company.

 

If you don't like Apple, don't buy it. If you don't like the stock, sell it, if you think everyone else is better and Apple is doomed, move on and forget about Apple.  

 

Melgross is right.

 

(Not something I've said often.)

 

But he is.

 

Apple are in danger of being consumed by their 'cool' hubris.

 

Have they so soon forgotten candy coloured iMacs?  Pushing the fashion failure of the Cube.  (That it failed isn't the point.)

 

The $1599 dollar G3 Tower (the best one they ever released under Jobs in my view...) - Remember the Performance, expandable, affordable etc.  ?  Whatever happened to the affordable?

 

How come you now can't get a desktop for less than £1000 UK smackers?  WITH a screen?  Is this the same company that USED to give us a fully featured iMac with screen and keyboard/mouse for £595 UK inc VAT!!!?

 

They SAT on the iPhone 4 design and then 'evolved' it into the iPhone 5.  Undeniably the iPhone 5 is a great phone.  The best on the market.

 

But 'one size fits all?'  Really?  From the company that gave us the iPod 'premium' at all segments?

 

The classic devolved into the shuffle, nano and the Touch.  All affordable.  All premium.  All value.  They sucked the life out of the competition.  So you could get an 'iPod' at £45?  £100ish.  £200 ish.  Recognise anything?  All Apple.   All value.  All quality.

 

Apple used to have a UK tower at £1055 there abouts.  Now you have to £2000+ for one with a crappy quad core and a crappy gpu.  And because Apple have a 'one size' fits all monitor range it costs you £899 inc vat to get a display?  Really?

 

What happened to affordability, Apple?

 

I'm an Apple guy.  But I aint drinking the cool aid of the price hikes since 2008.

 

It's a joke that you can't get an iMac any cheaper than the original launch price from its debut.  £1099 without DVD (add £65 and Fusion which should be standard...it's how much for a 128 SSD?) and you're looking at £165 more than the old entry and £365 more for what they 'should' have included if you count Fusion.  Little cost for Apple.  Alot extra for the consumer.  They used to have a model in 2008 £695 entry level iMac.  It's now £405 more pricey.  The Mac Pro £1000 more pricey to get on the ladder.  The mini used to be 'almost' compelling at under £495.  Seriously, they can't included a mouse and keyboard?  (And the latest iMac keyboard feels 'cheaper' with it's pressed plastic than the last generation's keyboard...)

 

Imac?  £200 price drop minimum across the board.  They're desktops.  Should be cheaper than Airs?

 

The Air?  Needs a cheaper model. 

 

Basically what Mel' said.

 

As for the iPad Mini.  Intro' the retina...but keep the old non retina model and drop the price on it.

 

iPhone?  Follow the iPod strategy.

 

Nuclear  on Samsung.

 

Go iPhone shuffle with siri.

Go iPhone Nano with colours.  Cheaper.  Plastic if necessary.

Go iPhone classic as is...with colours.  (Take your iPod touch streamline the design, add radio...and annodized colours.  Price trim.)  The iPod touch is a better design than the iPhone 5.  It just is.

Go iPhone +.  4.8-5 inches.  No home button...no border.  All front surface glass.  Tear drop design.  Super sexy.

 

You blow Samsung away.  Suck air out of Android and take on the Indian, China markets, Brazil HEAD ON!

 

You get the £50, £100+, £250+ £350+ £500+ markets nailed.

 

If you're going to cannibalise, do it to your own product...before Android does.

 

I think Mel' is right on the money.

 

Apple could easily make a more affordable tower while their at it.  Let the tower and iMac fight it out. But there's plenty of Windows users who would like a tower.  But start at £999 and offer a sane display to go with it.

 

Apple as Mel said?  Have done it in the past.

 

Plus the market share gains will sex up the stock value.

 

Get the iWatch out.

Get the aTV out.

 

Growth.

 

That's my multiprong zietgheist.

 

Get the 'Air' to where the 'iBook' used to be on price.

 

Cheaper ticket price for upsell.

 

Come on Apple.  You're making hard work of it.

 

Hubris and all that.  Until people wake up and realise cool aint worth the posterior reaming extra.

 

Nobody is saying they have to do cheap crap.  They never have.

 

Was the iMac 'cheap crap' when Apple offered it for £595?  Was the Shuffe 'cheap crap' when it took the iPod sub £100?  No.  Apple were desperate to corner the MP3 market.

 

Sure, there is a premium profit in the Phone market profits are with them.  But with £150 Billion in emerging world market smart phones share to be had...the ball is in Apple's court.

 

I hope Tim is listening.  People who can't afford non contract phones...find £500+ way too much.

 

Figure it out.  If they can Mini the iPad...they can go Nano and + with the iPhone, do colours, do annodized...give  people choice.  1 choice is ridiculous no matter how good it is.

 

It's indefensible.

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

Apple doesn't need to flood the market with cheap crap.  Samsung is doing fine in that department.  Sure, there's money in selling junk, but I don't want Apple's brand-image tarnished by being sold on every street corner.

It already is.

Yes.  And you can put an affordable consumer tower in that category along with a Pro redesign for 'mortals' who want to bootcamp with Apple.

 

Just watched teh G3 tower intro'.  Amazed at how affordable they were back then...complete with Quake 3 demo...  And decent GPUs.  Those were teh days.  The tower/desktop appears a dwindling market...but how they've treated it...sums it all up.  They're selling an out of date 'workstation' not worth the money.  Along with Monitor choice.  Totalitarian 'one size' fits all.  Are Apple becoming the 'big brother' of the 1984 advert?

 

Time for a reality check on your prices Apple as we hit a triple dip recession.   Meanwhile, you have 145 billion in the bank.

 

And you're nickle and diming us for Fusion drives, hiking iMac prices (2nd time they've done that in a recession...) and charging us for dropped features aka DVD drive.

 

They've now got enough in the bank to put the opposition to the sword.  They have the stores.  They have the reach.

 

Forget the share price.  Nobody is asking for 7% profit margins and unrealistic volumes in shrinking markets.  But going from £1045 to £2000 plus?

 

Going from £595 to £1160?

 

As the iPod market dissolves...we go from an affordable shuffle of £50+ to an iPhone of £500+

 

An iBook that used to be £695 to the Air's price?

 

Hubris.  

 

Or Greed?

 

Or both?

 

Affordability.  That was one of the things Jobs said in his keynote...back THEN when he launched the G3 Tower's blue and white design.  Power and affordability.

 

Discuss.

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

Basically what you said is that if it's pricer and better quality it's not as cool as something cheaper and more cheaply made and that is not correct.

When did the numbers slip? Apple sold more high-end phones than every other phone manufacturer last quarter and increased volume significantly over last year.

Tim is talking about the Android OS, as in dozens of manufacturers who have very low profit models and whose business model they don't see the value in replicating.

The Mac side had a small drop. It would be nice to see them push the Mac prices down a bit more as they are still less than 5th worldwide in PC marketshare but they have steady growth so it could just take a bit more time to get into the top 5. I don't know if 10% worldwide is feasible for them, it would mean shipping nearly 8-9 million Macs per quarter vs their usual 4-5 million. As melgross said, the slightly cheaper entry points would help. I personally think the 15" Macbook Pro is a big one to improve as it's the most popular category. The $1799 entry price is way above the entry price for a 15" PC laptop. Even if it meant a 15" Air.

That's worrying that it's at most two buttons controlling the whole thing. I hope they keep interns away from these buttons.

Truth.  They wanted to enter the high street.

 

It's no longer a niche club.

 

It's ok...as long as they remain on their OS, their Eco system..., their hardware specs...and COOL fashion.

 

Lose the latter's impetus...and...

 

I don't like the S3...it's cheap plastic 'chav' tripe and derivative design or it's crap android interface...that they don't show in ads like Apple does with jewel like iOS.

 

But give Samsung something.  They're onto something.  

 

Apple sat on the, admittedly great, iPhone 4 design.

 

And in the fickle world of fashion they entered into with the long silver spoon...they sit with the devil.

 

Come on, Ive.  This should be your finest hour.  Apple's kit is a qualified 'state of the art' design.  Yet...

 

You're sitting on 145billion?  Time to take the opposition out with a chainsaw at the knees like you did to Adobe and Avid with Final Cut back in the day...

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

 

No.  That's not what I said. :P

 

That's what you think.  And that's what you 'think' I said.

 

Try again, Soli.

 

Mel' was right.

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

 

Did you know that Apple sells computers? That they have a whopping 12% of the market share. That they don't want to put out a plastic cheap computers just to gain share. BUT what Apple does want to do is put out the very best in design, functionality and usability of anyone. And they deliver on that in heaps. 

 

So NO, Apple never has, never will be concerned about market share over quality products. Yes, everyone wants to sell me as that makes more money and allows you to do more things, but not at the expense of quality. 

 

PLEASE someone tell me what is cheaper than FREE! Everyone walks about acting like you don't need to have a call plan*. That being said, and we all know you need to buy data from someone. If you want the best phone experience on the market, you contract for two years and get a FREE phone. Pay more and you get the latest in smart phones. 

 

How long have you been with your carrier? What is the average? The average length of relationships between carriers and their under-contract customers fell to an all-time low of 48 months last year, - See more at: http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/26/technology/cell-phone-customers/index.htm#sthash.2ODDVLaX.dpuf

 

Those that purchase contract free phones do what for data? Either buy pay as you go, or sign up with a carrier. 

 

You people drive me crazy with your Microsoft thinking.  

 

*people using pay as you go are NOT looking for smart phones. 

Basic isn't what I said.

 

Basic is the choice Apple is offering.

 

And a pricey hubris that may yet come back to haunt them.

 

We shall see.

 

Affordable is what they have done with eg the iPod line as an Example.  They have, historically, BEEN there.  See what Mel' said.

 

And they 'could' do it again.

 

We'll SEE if they want to.

 

That doesn't mean 'cheap.'  But we know they can do 'CHEAPER.'

 

How many Apple fans would have defended Apple at £1000 for an iPad?

 

Yet Apple blew away all conception of this when it suited them.  They grabbed the iPad market by the balls with an astonishing £399 iPad.  £600 plus cheaper!

 

They CAN or COULD give consumers a better deal.  And go 'upsell' from there.

 

It's something they do well in the iPad and iPod markets.

 

iPhone?  Not so much.  Though 4s sales have done better than expected.

 

Desktop prices need work.

 

They need a more affordable laptop.

 

How they get there...up to Apple.

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

 

 

You do realize that Apple *IS* a luxury brand, right? 

 

Do you go around to all the luxury brand websites and tell them they need to sell cheaper products to the developing nations? 

 

What is your hatred with Apple being who they are? They ARE a luxury brand. Always have been, always will be. Get over it. 

What's in those Lemon Bon Bons? I'm starting to think it isn't anything remotely close to lemon.

 

What, like they did with the iPod shuffe?

 

or the iMac when it was priced entry at £595?

 

or the iBook at £695?

 

or the G3 tower when it was circa £1045?

 

Or the iPad at £399 (still an astonishing price...but the market has moved a little since then...)

 

or the Mini at £250-ish.

 

Or the cheaper contract iPhones?

 

They don't make junk.  Obvious.  Have they ever since Jobs rebirthed the combo.  Rarely.  That doesn't mean they can't make a £500+ phone more affordable or give us choice.  The iPod touches are far cheaper.  Are they junk?  How much does a beeping phone radio cost anyhow?!!!

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

 

Refined fructose, mate.

 

Lemon Bon Bon. :P

Eh...yes.

 

We DO realise they're a luxury brand.

 

So how come they make a sub £100 ipod?

 

Or a £100+ iPod Nano?

 

or a £250 touch? or iPad Mini?  

 

These are affordable?  Are they cheap crap or luxury.  The latter we know.

 

*shrugs.

 

But they do make expensive crap.  aka the Mac Pro at £2000+.  Now that one is luxury crap.

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

 

People using pay as you go are not looking for smart phones?

 

That right?

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

 

PS.  Don't want to sell cheap plastic crap?  Didn't stop them before with the iMac or iBook?  Or the G3 tower? :P

 

No he is not right as he intends Apple to be something they are not. Sure, they have had product failures and many HUGE successes. 

 

You can't take the iPod family and call on, just because it is smaller, cheaper and made for mass consumption. The iPod family, over time, grew into segments of usability. Some people wanted smaller iPods to use while running, or larger ones for more capacity. It was never to be cheaper and reach more people in that sense. 

 

The iPhone has already grown a size and may over time have different sizes (as well as colors), but NEVER to meet the demands of mass production, and always to meet the demands of user experience. 

 

I doubt the iPhone / iPad will have many colors as people tend to get cases for such products. You don't get a case, often, for your iPod. Plus the iPod is more of a 'fun', or youthful, product and therefore colorful by nature, although it did not start out that way. 

 

As the largest company in the world with over $140 Billion in Cash reserves, I think Apple does quite well with their own thinking and their success shows it. 

 

[edited: removed most of Lemon's quoted comment to save thread space] 

So unconcerned about marketshare?

 

Why did they so successfully bring iPods in at every price bracket they could?

 

It was a bet that saved the company and propelled it to where it is now.

 

Lemon Bon Bon.

 

...along with the cheap plastic crap imacs at the time...