France's Orange may be next to cut iPhone price, eat losses - reports - Page 4

I guess Apple also being more profitable than Dell despite selling less computers than them also doesn't mean much.

Completely different business models. Dell sells by the numbers and Apple sells by design. Design always has an advantage in the price you can charge. Sony does exactly the same thing. I own two Vaios for this very reason. They are awesome machines and I would never even consider another manufacturer. (sorry they are Vaio Laptops. My 2 macs are desktops)

This is the advantage Apple has there - they are very distinct from everyone else.

Possibly their mistake here was to try and apply that model to the iPhone - they thought they were distinct from everyone else producing mobile phones and therefore could make up their own rules but are finding very quickly they are playing in exactly the same space as other, far more experienced manufacturers.

And there will be periods when Dell is more profitable than Apple... swings and roundabouts...

Do you own the iPhone? If yes, what don't you like about it? (You can point me to one of your prior posts as well that might address it). And if no, you trot off now, since you are blowing smoke.

Nice points.

No, I think there is more than a subtle difference between 'complete disaster' and 'not perfect.' But hey, if the N95 works for you (or others that own it) great; more power to you. Enjoy it!

Hey, the N95 is a success story. No question

Mate, give the kiddies a break. Fantasy and make believe are important aspects of childhood. Trying to deprive them of these is a bit cruel, plenty of time for them to experience the full rigour of reality later in life.

I mean, 7M N95 sales is a disaster while 330K iPhone sales is a great success. You can't expect highly developed logical reasoning or mathematical ability at their age, it will come, in time.

Why don't you back that up, I don't believe you.

I'd like to say I agree with you 100% on this one, and it's exactly why I'm glad the current iPhone sales model has tanked in Europe. If it had been successful, Nokia, SE, Samsung, LG etc, would all have got a whiff of how they could fleece the consumers out of more money, tied into restrictive contracts and carriers. You yanks might be quite happy to put up with that, but in Europe we are most certainly not.

It's 4 million iphone worldwide vs. 1.1 million LG Voyagers sold by 1 American carrier, Verizon Wireless. Even Munster has estimated worldwide iphone shipment to be down to 1.6 million in Q1. How many of that comes from AT&T activation? If it comes down to less than 650K in AT&T activation in Q1, then add 1/2 of 900K in Christmas quarter --- it would equal the sales figure for the LG Voyager by Verizon Wireless during the same period.

Who cares about "internet usage"? Verizon Wireless still has HIGHER data ARPU than AT&T Wireless after the iphone is launched.

1/3 of iphone users have to carry a second iphone --- I don't consider that satisfactory at all.

Of course it is, by the same metric that says Vista is a success story.

But like I said, as long as you are enjoying yours, I wish you well. And I do not begrudge your purchase, nor those of all the 7M (or whatever). It's just that I won't be buying one.

I will say one thing that's not fantasy: I am a pretty darn happy shareholder having bought a ton of AAPL just prior to Jan '07. It's going to help me enjoy a second childhood (and postpone the rigor of reality that will supposedly hit later in my life - ref. cnocbui #127)!

Beep, beep, beep = the sound of you backing up.

I have said it more than once in this thread about what devices I own. If you are too lazy, dumb, etc... to scroll back and find it then continue to be lazy, dumb, etc.... It is on you. To date you have said nothing of importance but you do continue to grow your lemming status as an Apple zealot.

Over priced gadget. Would not buy it if they cut the price to any amount.

Ah, children:

7M = http://tinyurl.com/3hdydh

330K = http://tinyurl.com/3k8l84

You have lost the argument.

Don't confuse them with facts. Leave the blinders on dude.

In the first two quarters of sales Apple reported nearly half a billion in revenue from the iPhone.


Yes I agree Apple will be changing its business model. Keeping the phone locked to one carrier is to help start the iPhone platform. I don't believe Apple ever intended this model for the long run.


Well bring me real information other than your own opinion and I will read it.



This has nothing to do with being an American or not. I'm simply looking at sales and profits. Apple and its carrier partners are making money from the iPhone. This discussion of how many have been sold are besides that basic point.



You can chop it up any way you want, the fact still remains, AT&T has 70 million subscriber and Verizon has 63 million subscribers.

Where are you getting the 900,000 iPhone activations over Christmas? Exactly where are you getting that number? AT&T never reported it.

Lets say for the sake of argument AT&T did activate 900K iPhones. Why exactly would that be a failure? What other phone with a premium price and a premium contract sold far more over Christmas?


The iPhone is sold in Europe using pounds and euros not dollars. The device plus tariff and accessories equal a billion product.




Verizon does indeed advertise as all the mobile carriers do. They have a huge marketing budget for television, internet and print. Verizon has just announced a $99 unlimited voice plan and a $30 unlimited data plan.

Verizon pays the phone manufacturers for contract phones and exclusive Verizon distributed phones. Just as everyone else does.

Dell has been loosing revenue, marketshare, and stock price for the past couple of years. This is nothing new. The economic downturn is only making the situation worse.


Possibly but Dell has grown so large in its computer business that their has been little growth left. Dell has attempted to enter other markets to help grow profits but has not been as successful in any other market but computers.

Apple as been either extremely to moderately successful in other markets while continuing to grow profits and marketshare in its core computer business.

This is not at all highly developed logical reasoning. This is biased factual inaccuracy.

A clear example is your comparison of the N95's worldwide sales for the year in comparison to the iPhones European sales for the first two months.

Again the N95 is sold on nearly every carrier in every industrialized nation in the world. The N95 is offered for free with a cheaper tariff. An entirely different situation from the iPhone that renders any comparison flawed.


The LG Voyager sells because its CHEAPER. Why can't you even pick a phone that costs the same.


Can you cite where these data usage numbers come from.

You first say who cares about internet usage. Then point that Verizon has a higher ARPU. Does it matter or not?

In fact it does matter as data contracts will be future revenue growth features for carriers.


This has nothing to do with the iPhone specifically. A lot of people carry two phones. Carrying two phones is nothing new.

How did the one carrier launch in Europe help the iphone? Steve Jobs didn't even bother to announce it in person for Orange and Orange did a 1/2'assed announcement in Vietnam. Then all 3 carriers mysteriously not announcing any sales numbers.

And you can chop it any way you want --- without Tracfone, AT&T is nothing. Verizon Wireless has higher internal subscribers, higher percentage of postpaid, higher voice ARPU, higher data ARPU, lower churn, higher gross profit, higher net profit and higher profit margin than AT&T Wireless. Basically the score is 99 to 1 --- with AT&T Wireless winning by one single metric, which is the total subscriber count.

Guess what? Verizon Wireless doesn't care about that partiicular one. Verizon Wireless could have lowered prices, could have signed up with more MVNO's --- but did none of that.

AT&T's Q4 earnings call --- you can look at the transcript if you want. 900K activation in Q3 and Q4. 40% of them were from new subscribers.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/6165...ar-news-friday

269 pound = 540 USD (then you take out the various taxes) --- which mean that european iphone is generally 50-75 dollars more expensive than US iphone --- on a US dollar basis.

Verizon spends their ad budget very wisely --- "the network" rules --- which is why they have a higher retail subscriber base than AT&T.

The LG Voyager has the same touch-based technology --- so comparing it is better than comparing the iphone with a N95. Sure the LG Voyager is cheaper --- that's my point throughout this thread. It's better for the consumer to kill off the "full priced, crippled handset with a long contract" by a "subsidized priced, crippled handset with a long contract".

Verizon Wireless has a total ARPU is $51.49 and data ARPU of $11.06

http://investor.verizon.com/news/view.aspx?NewsID=885

AT&T Wireless has a total ARPU of $50.28 and data ARPU is 18% of that (about $9.05).

http://www.att.com/Investor/ATT_Annu...ullFinalAR.pdf

Of course, data contracts will be the future revenue growth. That's why AT&T's mix of prepaid and Tracfone subscriber net adds are garbage. Verizon had 1.7 million postpaid net adds in Q4 and AT&T Wireless had 1.2 million postpaid net adds in Q4.

I would love to see where you got such detailed segment data for the wireless portion. (Seriously, I am not being snarky here). A comparison at the corporate level reveals that ATT has performed at least as well as - well, actually a tad better than - Verizon:

ATT
Profit Margin '07 10.05%
Oper Margin '07 17.16%
EBITDA Margin '07 35.30%
ROA '07 4.38%
1-yr stock perf -4.6%
5-yr stock perf +82.1%

Verizon
Profit Margin '07 5.89%
Oper Margin '07 16.67%
EBITDA Margin '07 33.48%
ROA '07 2.93%
1-yr stock perf -5.3%
5-yr stock perf +7.1%


Source: finance.google.com

I am talking about the wireless division, not the whole company.

The reason why the AT&T parent company as a whole has better metrics than Verizon parent company as a whole --- AT&T is spending $6 billion on FTTN fiber optics network and Verizon is spending $22 billion on FTTH fiber optics network.

You can go and google how AT&T is getting blasted for being cheap on their fiber network build out.

Yeah, that's why I asked you for the source on the 'wireless segment' data - I was surprised by the level of segment detail.

They are all in the SEC quarter filings or annual filings --- which I linked earlier.

If the numbers are good, then big letters in the press releases. If the numbers are bad, then you have to figure it out by doing the calculation yourself using the general numbers in the SEC filings.

And I am not dissing AT&T in particular --- happens to every company. In terms of AT&T, you will never find the actual figures for data ARPU in the SEC filings (because the number is bad). They will just gloss it as data ARPU rising by 57.5% year to year, data ARPU represent 18% of total ARPU and gross data revenue (something like $2 billion). Even that, my calculation is still off because they refuse to give out how much they give back to Apple for revenue share (i.e. hidden in AT&T's expense column).

These few carriers allow Apple to control iPhone beginning development. Now a precedent and expectation have been set in regards to iPhone features and tariffs. As Apple expands to new carriers everyone will have an understanding of what is expected.

Google is actually having the same issue with Android. Google calls Android open but it reality it won't be totally open Google wants to maintain some degree of control of the Android experience and wants it to remain consistent.

Google does not want carriers to offer or negate different parts of Android to fit what they want to charge for various features. Google does not want handset makers to offer radically different Android features. Google does not want the Android OS to split into various different versions to suit different interests. So to some degree Android is also going to be closed and controlled by Google.




Its not that dramatic. Again you over exaggerate to prove your point.


Verizon has offered lower priced contracts, the same as everyone else.


OK good we have some proof. Now why does 900K activations mean that iPhone sales are bad? In context to what?



No the LG Voyager does not have the same touch based technology. Multi-Touch is proprietary and owned by Apple.

By your account the LG Voyager is not crippled and does not force the consumer to sign a long contract?

In reality "crippled" lies in the eye of the beholder. The iPhone holds high customer satisfaction rates. Most phone users are signed to long contracts.


Verizon's total ARPU is $1.21 better than AT&T.

That's what you describe as Verizon killing AT&T?


Yes I see Verizon is far ahead in data use with 500,000 more postpaid customers and $2.01 more in data ARPU.

As a single device the iPhone internet marketshare is three times all phones on Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile combined. And its not even 3G yet.

No, I am afraid their segment data as reported do not bear out your claims. For instance, you say that Verizon has, among other things, higher profit and higher profit margins, and gross profits in their wireless division compared to ATT.

That certainly was not true in 2007 for their reported pre-tax profits. (Unfortunately, none of the three you mentioned are shown in both of their financials. I am happy to give you the specific links if you wish, but you can, you say, easily find the segment data in the notes to the consolidated financials).

ATT Wireless Segment 2007:
Wireless segment income before taxes - $6,838 million
Pre-tax profit margin - 16.1%

Verizon Wireless Segment 2007:
Wireless segment income before taxes - $6,742 million
Pre-tax profit margin - 15.4%

In other words, assuming that they faced similar tax rates, ATT's wireless net profit and wireless profit margin were a tad better.

I am still puzzled by where you got the granular data for your claim. It does not square with the publicly reported numbers that I am able to see.

Again with the biased exaggeration. AT&T has expenses from all the handset makers it buys from or has exclusive deals with. AT&T does not break these expenses out individually to not show what it pays. The same as Verizon and every other mobile carrier.

What Samab is essentially pointing out is that Verizon has more customers signed to long term contract and makes more money per customer than AT&T.

AT&T has a larger customer base and makes more revenue but has more short term and MVNO customers.

A precedent for what --- let the carrier eat all the losses, which is the topic for this thread.

Android is yet another disappointment --- a "open source" project that is not "open" at all. Android is a fork of Java ME, yet Google doesn't allow Android to be forked by the use of "non-fragmentation agreement" within the Android license. These are people richer than god, never shares a single line of code and forking open source projects for their own benefits --- little wonder that plenty has questioned whether google has gone evil (as in Microsoft style).

How is that an exaggeration? AT&T Wireless only has 1 single metric that is better than Verizon Wireless.

Sure, Verizon has lower price contracts as well --- but taken as a whole --- higher ARPU.

The context for 900K in Q4 is bad --- AT&T did the same 900K activations in Q3. Consumer electronics live and die by the christmas quarter and the christmas quarter activation stalled. Have you visited a shopping mall in February, it's a graveyard.

No, by my account --- LG Voyager is crippled as well (as in 99% of the Verizon phones), but slightly less crippled than the iphone. If they are going to sell you a crippled phone, might as well be a subsidized crippled phone --- either way, you still have to sign a contract.

"Crippled" is not in the eyes of the beholder. "Crippled" cell phones are mostly defined by a group of crazed GSM fanbois doing their anti-Verizon, anti-Qualcomm, anti-CDMA bashing. They coined the phrase "crippled phone". It's poetic justice that the new standard for a crippled phone is a GSM phone.

The 2 carriers use 2 different profit margin standards (AT&T Wireless uses OIBDA profit margins vs. VZW uses EBITDA profit margins) --- hard to do side-by-side comparison. I am not a accountant so I can't say which one standard is better. But most business magazines have written that VZW has better profit margins than AT&T Wireless.

Well the European carriers charged too much from the beginning. I would call this a correction to where the price should have been from the beginning.


To be a stable platform that grows from a singular vision it can't fork off in different directions. Too open is just as bad as too proprietary. Example, Linux.


Verizon making a couple of dollars more profit per customer is good but not that great. AT&T is also doing well and growing profits.


Sooo..... the iPhone will die because AT&T activated the same amount of phones in Q4 as Q3? Even though over all Apple sold more iPhones in Q4 than Q3.


Really? Slightly less crippled? Does an SDK that hundreds of thousands of developers have downloaded make some difference between the iPhone and LG Voyager. An SDK built on desktop API's that will allow developers to build console grade games.

A browser that will support HTML5, Javascript, CSS, scalable vector graphics, and data persistence. All of this code will allow web applications that look and feel like native apps that can run with no wireless network. Since the LG Voyager is less crippled of course it already does that.


Crippled is bandied so much its pretty much meaningless at this point. People call anything crippled that doesn't do something they want it to do. Instead of realizing that this product was not made for you and something else fits your needs better.

So your phone has sold less than the iphone, thats all I needed to know. So now weshouldn't care about internet usage and other things that the iphone leads in, what has your LG phone done for the industry.

So your phone which was released before the iphone and is offered for free has sold 7 million to the iphone's 4 million.

The LG Voyager has done a single thing for the industry --- show that the carriers can maintain the status quo of "subsidized crippled phone with a long contract without revenue sharing".

And it's not just the Voyager, the iphone was supposed to kill the blackberry. Blackberry sold 4 million units in the last quarter, which is twice as much as the iphone.

So, it was Apple's choice to pick the largest carrier in UK, France and Germany --- that comes with a price premium automatically.

You don't see linux being unstable at all --- even though there are a million different distributions.

$2 per month x 65 million subscribers x 12 months = $1.56 billion per year.

It is disasterous for Apple --- because other carriers who were fighting to get the "exclusive" in their respective countries, now takes another look. Before all of this crap, it was China Mobile spinning how they were negotiating with Apple --- even though all they did was send a junior staffer to Cupertino. Now, it's China Mobile saying that they got 400K iphones in China, and what are you Apple going to do about it?

You can buy apps for the LG Voyager from Verizon's Get It Now store --- no need to wait for another couple months for the final SDK and then wait a few more months for the apps to show up on the apple itunes store. You want to pay games now, here are the games available for the Voyager.

http://products.vzw.com/search_games...rchTxt=voyager

BREW is written in C (fast) --- and they have been offering premium 3D games (that costs about $12 each).

As I said before, it's just a bunch of crazed GSM fanbois mostly talking about their $600 unbranded N series phones. It is meaningless for the general public who could care less about premium unbranded cell phones.

You just spoke complete nonsense. (Sorry, I had to say that, because it's true).

I know what he is "essentially pointing out." Thanks.

It basically means that Verizon Wireless hasn't gobbled up anyone big since its creation in 2000. So Verizon Wireless doesn't have many 1 off items --- especially when CDMAone can be upgraded to CDMA 1x and then upgraded from 1x to ev-do without writing off old equipment. So they use 1 standard that doesn't have a lot of write-offs.

Cingular bought AT&T Wireless in 2004 --- you are talking about layoffs from the merger, killing the old TDMA network,... --- a lot of 1 off items to write off. So they use a second standard that has a lot of write-offs.

Mind you --- both standards are not GAAP.

"On Friday, the London Times quoted Kathryn Huberty, an Apple (AAPL) specialist at Morgan Stanley, saying that the European carriers had become over-excited by iPhone hype last June, ordered too many, and are now facing “significant” losses on unsold stock."

Along with over ordering - over charging what the market would be willing to bear for phone and tariff.


Unstable in its business model. The fact that their are so many versions competing against each other. There is no singular vision or focus. Because of this Linux is unlikely to ever become a desktop OS that competes with Windows or OS X.

Google does not want this for Android. Which ironically is based on Linux.


Its difficult to say how all of this will play right now. As much as we may like to believe, we are not privy to what's really going on in negotiations. We are only hearing second hand rumors.

China Mobile being stubborn isn't necessarily punishing Apple. All of the unlocked iPhones in China are still sales, revenue, and profit for Apple. Those unlocked phones may or may not be used on China Mobile's network.


Come on now. BREW and OS X are not in the same class of development platforms at all. The hardware running the LG Voyager is not the same as the hardware powering the iPhone. You get what you pay for.

From the examples of what we've seen the iPhone SDK will be worth the wait.

What correction are you talking about? You mean the sudden 99 Euro prices? You seem to forget, Europeans are used to paying full price for phones. There are some subsidizing here but Europeans don't cry about the price of phones the way American subscribers do.


If this is the best you got then the iPhone is doomed. The iPhone is not a biz grade phone, nor even a real smart phone. It is an iPod with phone. Once again, you obviously have not had the experience of using a high-end phone with high-end features. You seem (I could be wrong here and am willing to admit it if so) to be all goo goo eyed because of the UI and the visual voice mail feature. For my tasks a high end phone has to have high end features. The iPhone simply falls short. Just for fun, compare the N82 features with those of the iPhone and see the difference.


My N82 does this already.


Can the iPhone send an SMS to more than one person? Does it have MMS? Can you store files on it to send later as emails? Can you exchange private data via vCards? How about a VoIP call? I won't even mention the data speeds. Oh, did I mention the camera? Can you make a video with your iPhone? No, no, no, no again, nope, nein, ei, and so on. CRIPPLED. So you "crippled is pretty much meaningless" is pretty much meaningless as well as it is based on inaccuracies. When I got my iPhone (are you paying attention anantksundaram), I knew what it could and could not do. I do not use it regularly. I use it sometimes as a work phone for the days when I want to have a vid or some music with me. Most of the time it sits in a draw.