I’m enjoying life here in the English-speaking Philippines, where most folks have either an Android or a feature phone. It comes down to cost.
My iPhone 8+ 64GB cost me 51,500 pesos at the iStore (a very nice chain of Apple Authorized resellers here). That’s about $1000. And that’s about five months salary for the person who I interacted with while in that store. Many people earn half that, equivalent to about $100/month. So there’s the rub; it doesn’t break down by language spoken. Prefers really means prefers only among those whose budget would allow them to opt for either. For the vast majority of the world, that’s just not the case.
But back in Boca Raton? Yeah, people prefer iPhone. And expensive Verizon mobile plans. And high rise condos. And, from what I could tell in the 7 years I lived there, Mercedes over BMW. No accounting for some people’s preferences, eh?
Then why always the lobbying for cheap iPhones? What’s more important? Profit or market share? If Mercedes and BMW are doing just fine then why can’t Apple do the same. Why does Apple have to cater to the poor, unwashed masses who can’t afford design and quality? So what if there are more Android phones in this world? It hasn’t affected Apple one tiny bit. It’s almost a Marxist view some people espouse on Apple. Everyone should be able to afford an iPhone X? Really? A phone for the proletariat? Or maybe we just need redistribution of global wealth and should stick it to those Boca Raton idle rich who got their ill gotten gains off the backs of poor Filipinos.
Well, both. Like any company, Apple needs to turn a profit, and profits also fund R&D for new devices, but beyond that, as a user, I really don't care how much Apple's profits are and to a certain extent I'd prefer them be lower since my purchases are what's funding their profits. If you are looking at two different cars, do you buy the one from the company with higher profits?
Market share is important in that you need to have enough of a base to keep the platform viable and encourage the development of apps and accessories. That's what did the Windows phone in. I read many reports that said the Windows Phone OS was actually fairly good and had some nice features, but they never got enough market share to make it worthwhile for developers and it eventually fizzled. Remember back in the 90's when Apple was on death's door? One of the things they did was ensure that Microsoft Office would be available. It's impossible to say, but not having an the industry standard office suite available may have been enough to do Apple in.
The disposable income in France, Spain and Italy is indeed very low. Similar to your insight in the world economics (we are indeed not all equal on that point as well).
And similar to the smartphone offerings in non English languages. Apple is very slow to offer it services in non English regions in the world. I live in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, another of those "low income" countries, and I don't have Apple Pay, Apple News, no Apple Maps Transit, no contextual predicting or multilingual support for the keyboard, very crappy Siri (it is embarrassingly bad), no Siri on Apple TV, ... In all those areas Google is providing a good to very good service.
Very good points. Outside of US, UK, Canada, Australia, Apple’s second tier are Japan, China and New Zealand. Then comes the rest of the world. iTunes Store only took more than 10 years to be established in Singapore, mind you. You would think Apple could spare a billion or two to hire more people to work on these problems.
An observation about those countries where Android is dominant: they typically don’t have strong IP law enforcement. My wild ass guess is that it’s popular in those places due to pirated content. Germany may be an outlier because of Android’s ability to sideload apps. iOS can do this as well but I wish more people would stop peddling the myth that it can’t.
Well, both. Like any company, Apple needs to turn a profit, and profits also fund R&D for new devices, but beyond that, as a user, I really don't care how much Apple's profits are and to a certain extent I'd prefer them be lower since my purchases are what's funding their profits. If you are looking at two different cars, do you buy the one from the company with higher profits?
Agree with you and this is why Google and Facebook are doomed. Between the two of them they are taking in more than 90% of the global ad revenue, which means market saturation. And they can’t price ads any higher because there is a lack of differentiation (hence the need to invest in tracking technologies and alternative delivery like AR, VR etc.) Additionally there’s ad fatigue which leads to fast growing use of ad blockers as well S government oversight, and I would be underweight those stocks.
I’m enjoying life here in the English-speaking Philippines, where most folks have either an Android or a feature phone. It comes down to cost.
My iPhone 8+ 64GB cost me 51,500 pesos at the iStore (a very nice chain of Apple Authorized resellers here). That’s about $1000. And that’s about five months salary for the person who I interacted with while in that store. Many people earn half that, equivalent to about $100/month. So there’s the rub; it doesn’t break down by language spoken. Prefers really means prefers only among those whose budget would allow them to opt for either. For the vast majority of the world, that’s just not the case.
But back in Boca Raton? Yeah, people prefer iPhone. And expensive Verizon mobile plans. And high rise condos. And, from what I could tell in the 7 years I lived there, Mercedes over BMW. No accounting for some people’s preferences, eh?
Then why always the lobbying for cheap iPhones? What’s more important? Profit or market share? If Mercedes and BMW are doing just fine then why can’t Apple do the same. Why does Apple have to cater to the poor, unwashed masses who can’t afford design and quality? So what if there are more Android phones in this world? It hasn’t affected Apple one tiny bit. It’s almost a Marxist view some people espouse on Apple. Everyone should be able to afford an iPhone X? Really? A phone for the proletariat? Or maybe we just need redistribution of global wealth and should stick it to those Boca Raton idle rich who got their ill gotten gains off the backs of poor Filipinos.
Well, both. Like any company, Apple needs to turn a profit, and profits also fund R&D for new devices, but beyond that, as a user, I really don't care how much Apple's profits are and to a certain extent I'd prefer them be lower since my purchases are what's funding their profits. If you are looking at two different cars, do you buy the one from the company with higher profits?
Market share is important in that you need to have enough of a base to keep the platform viable and encourage the development of apps and accessories. That's what did the Windows phone in. I read many reports that said the Windows Phone OS was actually fairly good and had some nice features, but they never got enough market share to make it worthwhile for developers and it eventually fizzled. Remember back in the 90's when Apple was on death's door? One of the things they did was ensure that Microsoft Office would be available. It's impossible to say, but not having an the industry standard office suite available may have been enough to do Apple in.
Market share is BY SEGMENT. That's the big issue here.
A high profit means you either have a massive volume and low per unit pricing, or a more targeted market that specifically values your product and is ready to pay for it.
It just keeps getting worse for the naysayers. Oh, and AAPL is now at 933 Billion market cap. What were “they" saying about Amazon getting there first?
Yes, other than Germany all the other countries on the list comes down to disposable income and how much they have. If you look at other consumer product you probably see similar trend. I bet many of these countries have motorcycles and bikes are primary transportation.
I am not sure why surveiers want to treat all consumers equal, we are not and because one consumer does one thing does not may other follow suit.
The disposable income in France, Spain and Italy is indeed very low. Similar to your insight in the world economics (we are indeed not all equal on that point as well).
And similar to the smartphone offerings in non English languages. Apple is very slow to offer it services in non English regions in the world. I live in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, another of those "low income" countries, and I don't have Apple Pay, Apple News, no Apple Maps Transit, no contextual predicting or multilingual support for the keyboard, very crappy Siri (it is embarrassingly bad), no Siri on Apple TV, ... In all those areas Google is providing a good to very good service.
Interesting. Bit Apple Pay is probably on the way. Apple news is dead for most of us. They do seem to be tardy on the transit on some European countries though.
I’m enjoying life here in the English-speaking Philippines, where most folks have either an Android or a feature phone. It comes down to cost.
My iPhone 8+ 64GB cost me 51,500 pesos at the iStore (a very nice chain of Apple Authorized resellers here). That’s about $1000. And that’s about five months salary for the person who I interacted with while in that store. Many people earn half that, equivalent to about $100/month. So there’s the rub; it doesn’t break down by language spoken. Prefers really means prefers only among those whose budget would allow them to opt for either. For the vast majority of the world, that’s just not the case.
But back in Boca Raton? Yeah, people prefer iPhone. And expensive Verizon mobile plans. And high rise condos. And, from what I could tell in the 7 years I lived there, Mercedes over BMW. No accounting for some people’s preferences, eh?
Then why always the lobbying for cheap iPhones? What’s more important? Profit or market share? If Mercedes and BMW are doing just fine then why can’t Apple do the same. Why does Apple have to cater to the poor, unwashed masses who can’t afford design and quality? So what if there are more Android phones in this world? It hasn’t affected Apple one tiny bit. It’s almost a Marxist view some people espouse on Apple. Everyone should be able to afford an iPhone X? Really? A phone for the proletariat? Or maybe we just need redistribution of global wealth and should stick it to those Boca Raton idle rich who got their ill gotten gains off the backs of poor Filipinos.
Well, both. Like any company, Apple needs to turn a profit, and profits also fund R&D for new devices, but beyond that, as a user, I really don't care how much Apple's profits are and to a certain extent I'd prefer them be lower since my purchases are what's funding their profits. If you are looking at two different cars, do you buy the one from the company with higher profits?
Market share is important in that you need to have enough of a base to keep the platform viable and encourage the development of apps and accessories. That's what did the Windows phone in. I read many reports that said the Windows Phone OS was actually fairly good and had some nice features, but they never got enough market share to make it worthwhile for developers and it eventually fizzled. Remember back in the 90's when Apple was on death's door? One of the things they did was ensure that Microsoft Office would be available. It's impossible to say, but not having an the industry standard office suite available may have been enough to do Apple in.
Market share is BY SEGMENT. That's the big issue here.
A high profit means you either have a massive volume and low per unit pricing, or a more targeted market that specifically values your product and is ready to pay for it.
True, but I'm not sure I get your point - if they are generating their profit by tiny numbers of sales with huge profit per unit they will end up with a small market share that can end up hurting the ecosystem as a whole due to the small numbers. Likewise you can have have huge penetration in one segment and miss the rest. Now, if the 'segment' is American buyers, then we're good.
I’m enjoying life here in the English-speaking Philippines, where most folks have either an Android or a feature phone. It comes down to cost.
My iPhone 8+ 64GB cost me 51,500 pesos at the iStore (a very nice chain of Apple Authorized resellers here). That’s about $1000. And that’s about five months salary for the person who I interacted with while in that store. Many people earn half that, equivalent to about $100/month. So there’s the rub; it doesn’t break down by language spoken. Prefers really means prefers only among those whose budget would allow them to opt for either. For the vast majority of the world, that’s just not the case.
But back in Boca Raton? Yeah, people prefer iPhone. And expensive Verizon mobile plans. And high rise condos. And, from what I could tell in the 7 years I lived there, Mercedes over BMW. No accounting for some people’s preferences, eh?
Then why always the lobbying for cheap iPhones? What’s more important? Profit or market share? If Mercedes and BMW are doing just fine then why can’t Apple do the same. Why does Apple have to cater to the poor, unwashed masses who can’t afford design and quality? So what if there are more Android phones in this world? It hasn’t affected Apple one tiny bit. It’s almost a Marxist view some people espouse on Apple. Everyone should be able to afford an iPhone X? Really? A phone for the proletariat? Or maybe we just need redistribution of global wealth and should stick it to those Boca Raton idle rich who got their ill gotten gains off the backs of poor Filipinos.
Well, both. Like any company, Apple needs to turn a profit, and profits also fund R&D for new devices, but beyond that, as a user, I really don't care how much Apple's profits are and to a certain extent I'd prefer them be lower since my purchases are what's funding their profits. If you are looking at two different cars, do you buy the one from the company with higher profits?
Market share is important in that you need to have enough of a base to keep the platform viable and encourage the development of apps and accessories. That's what did the Windows phone in. I read many reports that said the Windows Phone OS was actually fairly good and had some nice features, but they never got enough market share to make it worthwhile for developers and it eventually fizzled. Remember back in the 90's when Apple was on death's door? One of the things they did was ensure that Microsoft Office would be available. It's impossible to say, but not having an the industry standard office suite available may have been enough to do Apple in.
Market share is BY SEGMENT. That's the big issue here.
A high profit means you either have a massive volume and low per unit pricing, or a more targeted market that specifically values your product and is ready to pay for it.
True, but I'm not sure I get your point - if they are generating their profit by tiny numbers of sales with huge profit per unit they will end up with a small market share that can end up hurting the ecosystem as a whole due to the small numbers. Likewise you can have have huge penetration in one segment and miss the rest. Now, if the 'segment' is American buyers, then we're good.
Yeh, I think that some people don’t get that it’s a platform not just a number of unconnected devices sold randomly.
iOS is in most companies the first choice for development or the equal partner. In English speaking countries it’s generally the first.
I don’t think Apple are as concerned with ASP as Wall Street, might be a metric worth removing from the conference call. yhr
Yes, other than Germany all the other countries on the list comes down to disposable income and how much they have. If you look at other consumer product you probably see similar trend. I bet many of these countries have motorcycles and bikes are primary transportation.
I am not sure why surveiers want to treat all consumers equal, we are not and because one consumer does one thing does not may other follow suit.
I agree. It’s not hard to believe if money were not an issue many of those customers in countries where Android leads would be getting iPhones and higher end Android phones. So I agree with other posts made about stock analysts playing the system. And Apple is the big fish in this pond.
Yes, other than Germany all the other countries on the list comes down to disposable income and how much they have. If you look at other consumer product you probably see similar trend. I bet many of these countries have motorcycles and bikes are primary transportation.
I am not sure why surveiers want to treat all consumers equal, we are not and because one consumer does one thing does not may other follow suit.
The disposable income in France, Spain and Italy is indeed very low. Similar to your insight in the world economics (we are indeed not all equal on that point as well).
And similar to the smartphone offerings in non English languages. Apple is very slow to offer it services in non English regions in the world. I live in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, another of those "low income" countries, and I don't have Apple Pay, Apple News, no Apple Maps Transit, no contextual predicting or multilingual support for the keyboard, very crappy Siri (it is embarrassingly bad), no Siri on Apple TV, ... In all those areas Google is providing a good to very good service.
What I find interesting is Apple has a much better track record on localization than most other companies especially when it comes the Mac. No one will argue Siri lacks localization. Google does a little better on some things but from a total stand point they are not better. I can not figure out why Apple has not ported the localization they have done on the Mac over iOS. I am thinking it because Localization done correctly needs to be on the device and it take memory to do. I have always delocalized my computers and those files remove gigs of memory. Right now Apple has one version of iOS and to fully localize it could chew up lots of memory. Also, as we know Apple does not want you information being sent to their servers unlike Google who most likely hands localization on their servers.
Yes, other than Germany all the other countries on the list comes down to disposable income and how much they have. If you look at other consumer product you probably see similar trend. I bet many of these countries have motorcycles and bikes are primary transportation.
I am not sure why surveiers want to treat all consumers equal, we are not and because one consumer does one thing does not may other follow suit.
The disposable income in France, Spain and Italy is indeed very low. Similar to your insight in the world economics (we are indeed not all equal on that point as well).
And similar to the smartphone offerings in non English languages. Apple is very slow to offer it services in non English regions in the world. I live in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, another of those "low income" countries, and I don't have Apple Pay, Apple News, no Apple Maps Transit, no contextual predicting or multilingual support for the keyboard, very crappy Siri (it is embarrassingly bad), no Siri on Apple TV, ... In all those areas Google is providing a good to very good service.
Also, as we know Apple does not want you information being sent to their servers unlike Google who most likely hands localization on their servers.
Comments
Market share is important in that you need to have enough of a base to keep the platform viable and encourage the development of apps and accessories. That's what did the Windows phone in. I read many reports that said the Windows Phone OS was actually fairly good and had some nice features, but they never got enough market share to make it worthwhile for developers and it eventually fizzled. Remember back in the 90's when Apple was on death's door? One of the things they did was ensure that Microsoft Office would be available. It's impossible to say, but not having an the industry standard office suite available may have been enough to do Apple in.
An observation about those countries where Android is dominant: they typically don’t have strong IP law enforcement. My wild ass guess is that it’s popular in those places due to pirated content. Germany may be an outlier because of Android’s ability to sideload apps. iOS can do this as well but I wish more people would stop peddling the myth that it can’t.
Agree with you and this is why Google and Facebook are doomed. Between the two of them they are taking in more than 90% of the global ad revenue, which means market saturation. And they can’t price ads any higher because there is a lack of differentiation (hence the need to invest in tracking technologies and alternative delivery like AR, VR etc.) Additionally there’s ad fatigue which leads to fast growing use of ad blockers as well S government oversight, and I would be underweight those stocks.
it's because they don't have a sense of humour...
iOS is in most companies the first choice for development or the equal partner. In English speaking countries it’s generally the first.
I don’t think Apple are as concerned with ASP as Wall Street, might be a metric worth removing from the conference call.
yhr