It's a darn shame Apple gradually priced itself out of the global smartphone market. There's no choice but to lower prices on iPhones because there aren't any features Apple could add to the iPhone to attract consumers. Apple really had a good iPhone business for so many years but I'm guessing those days are over. Apple certainly wasn't able to put any Chinese smartphone manufacturer out of business and each year those Chinese smartphone vendors got stronger by adding more features and building higher-quality smartphones. It seems as though Apple has lost its iPhone business in China with no hope of gaining those customers back. Every year, Apple loses more and more market share percentage. I wonder if that will ever stop. Android, as a whole, is just killing Apple in terms of market share percentage and there's nothing Apple can do about it except to find some alternate revenue streams.
Competitors have simply stepped ahead of Apple. It isn't that Apple can't compete. More that it simply chose notto and thought users would buy into the deal anyway. Call it arrogance, complacency or whatever you prefer but although Apple dropped the 'S' from the name, it still has an 'S' cycle. To make matters far, far worse, the that cycle sits within a yearly refresh cycle.
With regards to the competition, Apple has become a technological sloth. By the time Apple gets around to releasing a competitive product (assuming it is competitive) later this year, two years will have passed since the iPhone X.
To contrast that with Huawei, in the same period they released a flagship everyquarter. ....
The current strategy of offering lower priced phones which are old, really isn't going to keep users interested while they see all the advances coming to Android at attractive price points.
That's my master plan anyway. :-)
While I generally agree with you about Huawei, I disagree on this. Huawei, while not a newbie, simply doesn't have the reputation to protect. if they put out a phone with a defect, they can either shrug or fix it and move on. If Apple makes even the slightest of errors, it is international news and they are punished in every way shape or form -- even on a rumor that there might be a defect. ... So, Apple has to be cautious rather that constantly pushing the envelope as a Huawei can do.
And for using older to products to provide lower cost products: I think that is necessary because a big part of Apple's cost is not just the hardware (as it is for Huawei & Samsung) but Apple's software and ecosystem that others don't need to pay for -- so exploiting older designs and manufacturing systems helps them put out a quality, price competitive product. Plus, as I mentioned, Apple has to protect their reputation because they are held to a higher standard - so selling proven older phones is less risky than one designed to be cheap.
I mostly agree. The problem is that Apple is a slow mover in one the most dynamic consumer markets out there.
There's no problem in that as long as there are sales (although the 'markets' want growth in addition to sales). However, when sales flatten for so long and then contract you have two options: Do nothing (or virtually nothing) and hope the situation corrects itself (we all remember the rumoured 'supercycle') or you make changes to adapt to a new reality (saturation among others).
I think the second option is the only way forward now, given how much the smartphone world has changed/advanced.
I follow what you say on the difficulties and risks though.
The changes are already here and started with the 2017 refresh (which I applauded). First with the simple, low risk, changes. Last year they should have taken that a step further IMO but they chose to play safe and try to squeeze more money out of people by increasing prices and shipping a simply iterative upgrade with the usual 'storage upsell' to annoy users.
Two quarters down the road, it has backfired in a big way.
Other factors have come into play such as the 5G misstep and the 'batterygate' problems which have accentuated the underlying issues.
Rumours say the Kirin 985 will have the Balong 5000 on the SoC. If that is true, it means that every model that uses it (it will be announced in around four months) will automatically and natively be a 5G phone. That is going to be a huge amount of phones.
Others, in the mid range, will ship with the Kirin 980 + Balong 5000, which will be another huge amount of phones.
I would introduce an SE style iPhone around MWC2020 with an A12, hole punch LCD, rear mounted TouchID (shock!), gradient finish and an attractive price.
Something with a fresh design and plenty of power while not being at the very top end if the line and released out of the traditional iPhone refresh window.
You surely must be aware that Apple's iPhone generated more revenue, and at a much higher rate of profit, than Huawei's entire business did, for the quarter. Given that Huawei is state supported, they can live with very low rates of profit. In the West, that wouldn't be possible under stockholder ownership.
For you ASP's don't matter, but they do for corporations. Sooner than later, the Android OS Device Market will be saturated, and in decline. Do you really think that now is the time for Apple to reverse years of profitability to chase marketshare, when their iPhone user base keeps expanding.
For the record, I purchased a refurbished iPhone 8 for my brother yesterday for $349.00. I don't know if it was refurbished by Apple, or some third party, but I do know that that is a very good value. It is, interestingly enough, not much larger than the SE, and would certainly fulfill that position if and until Apple does create a replacement to the SE.
I am not concerned by Huawei's frequent product releases, nor Apple's lack of 5G for this fall. All they are doing is training customers to expect frequent new models, and price drops as they are replaced. You actually explained that to me as your "value" strategy.
Two, different, markets. Apple is an entire ecosystem including the iPhone, while Android OS device makers compete, for the most part, with each other based on hardware and UI. As the market saturates, there will be a race to the bottom until the device makers consolidate. That could begin, if it hasn't already, at any time.
Congratulations on the iPhone 8. That is a great price.
The main Android market is already saturated and has been for a couple of years now.
We are seeing convergence as a result but is some of the smaller non-niche players who are feeling the pinch. That said, much more effort is being put into other 'less developed' markets which have great potential. Obviously, without a change in business model, Apple will find it difficult to expand into those markets but has plenty of room to claim some of that 80% Android share.
Huawei isn't government funded. They've made that clear.
As for profit, they make more than enough to finance huge R&D budgets become more vertically integrated by the day and have huge plans for every rung on the tech ladder going forward. Some of those plans might seem scary to you:
I've posted a few times about Huawei's so called "employee ownership", and unless and until Huawei becomes more transparent in its financials, the West cannot assume that they are anything other than a state supported company.
Here's a response from a commenter of wrt the report and Huawei's response;
"Don: I think you know why Huawei objects so strongly to this English-language report, for which I congratulate you and Christopher. Huawei is fighting on multiple fronts what it views as a life-and-death struggle for markets in OECD countries where there seems to emerging a (excuse the expression) “united front” to keep Huawei out. The basis for this determination is the perceived domination of Huawei and every other PRC company by the Communist Party and their alignment with China’s geostrategic aims. Easily accessible commentary in English by knowledgeable foreign China experts which undermines the false narrative that Huawei is simply like every other private business corporation owned by its shareholders may defeat or hinder Huawei’s global ambition."
'perceived'. What a surprise.
Experts differ. Huawei could clear this up with transparency of their financials. They didn't do that.
It's a darn shame Apple gradually priced itself out of the global smartphone market. There's no choice but to lower prices on iPhones because there aren't any features Apple could add to the iPhone to attract consumers. Apple really had a good iPhone business for so many years but I'm guessing those days are over. Apple certainly wasn't able to put any Chinese smartphone manufacturer out of business and each year those Chinese smartphone vendors got stronger by adding more features and building higher-quality smartphones. It seems as though Apple has lost its iPhone business in China with no hope of gaining those customers back. Every year, Apple loses more and more market share percentage. I wonder if that will ever stop. Android, as a whole, is just killing Apple in terms of market share percentage and there's nothing Apple can do about it except to find some alternate revenue streams.
Competitors have simply stepped ahead of Apple. It isn't that Apple can't compete. More that it simply chose notto and thought users would buy into the deal anyway. Call it arrogance, complacency or whatever you prefer but although Apple dropped the 'S' from the name, it still has an 'S' cycle. To make matters far, far worse, the that cycle sits within a yearly refresh cycle.
With regards to the competition, Apple has become a technological sloth. By the time Apple gets around to releasing a competitive product (assuming it is competitive) later this year, two years will have passed since the iPhone X.
To contrast that with Huawei, in the same period they released a flagship everyquarter. ....
The current strategy of offering lower priced phones which are old, really isn't going to keep users interested while they see all the advances coming to Android at attractive price points.
That's my master plan anyway. :-)
While I generally agree with you about Huawei, I disagree on this. Huawei, while not a newbie, simply doesn't have the reputation to protect. if they put out a phone with a defect, they can either shrug or fix it and move on. If Apple makes even the slightest of errors, it is international news and they are punished in every way shape or form -- even on a rumor that there might be a defect. ... So, Apple has to be cautious rather that constantly pushing the envelope as a Huawei can do.
And for using older to products to provide lower cost products: I think that is necessary because a big part of Apple's cost is not just the hardware (as it is for Huawei & Samsung) but Apple's software and ecosystem that others don't need to pay for -- so exploiting older designs and manufacturing systems helps them put out a quality, price competitive product. Plus, as I mentioned, Apple has to protect their reputation because they are held to a higher standard - so selling proven older phones is less risky than one designed to be cheap.
I mostly agree. The problem is that Apple is a slow mover in one the most dynamic consumer markets out there.
There's no problem in that as long as there are sales (although the 'markets' want growth in addition to sales). However, when sales flatten for so long and then contract you have two options: Do nothing (or virtually nothing) and hope the situation corrects itself (we all remember the rumoured 'supercycle') or you make changes to adapt to a new reality (saturation among others).
I think the second option is the only way forward now, given how much the smartphone world has changed/advanced.
I follow what you say on the difficulties and risks though.
The changes are already here and started with the 2017 refresh (which I applauded). First with the simple, low risk, changes. Last year they should have taken that a step further IMO but they chose to play safe and try to squeeze more money out of people by increasing prices and shipping a simply iterative upgrade with the usual 'storage upsell' to annoy users.
Two quarters down the road, it has backfired in a big way.
Other factors have come into play such as the 5G misstep and the 'batterygate' problems which have accentuated the underlying issues.
Rumours say the Kirin 985 will have the Balong 5000 on the SoC. If that is true, it means that every model that uses it (it will be announced in around four months) will automatically and natively be a 5G phone. That is going to be a huge amount of phones.
Others, in the mid range, will ship with the Kirin 980 + Balong 5000, which will be another huge amount of phones.
I would introduce an SE style iPhone around MWC2020 with an A12, hole punch LCD, rear mounted TouchID (shock!), gradient finish and an attractive price.
Something with a fresh design and plenty of power while not being at the very top end if the line and released out of the traditional iPhone refresh window.
You surely must be aware that Apple's iPhone generated more revenue, and at a much higher rate of profit, than Huawei's entire business did, for the quarter. Given that Huawei is state supported, they can live with very low rates of profit. In the West, that wouldn't be possible under stockholder ownership.
For you ASP's don't matter, but they do for corporations. Sooner than later, the Android OS Device Market will be saturated, and in decline. Do you really think that now is the time for Apple to reverse years of profitability to chase marketshare, when their iPhone user base keeps expanding.
For the record, I purchased a refurbished iPhone 8 for my brother yesterday for $349.00. I don't know if it was refurbished by Apple, or some third party, but I do know that that is a very good value. It is, interestingly enough, not much larger than the SE, and would certainly fulfill that position if and until Apple does create a replacement to the SE.
I am not concerned by Huawei's frequent product releases, nor Apple's lack of 5G for this fall. All they are doing is training customers to expect frequent new models, and price drops as they are replaced. You actually explained that to me as your "value" strategy.
Two, different, markets. Apple is an entire ecosystem including the iPhone, while Android OS device makers compete, for the most part, with each other based on hardware and UI. As the market saturates, there will be a race to the bottom until the device makers consolidate. That could begin, if it hasn't already, at any time.
Congratulations on the iPhone 8. That is a great price.
The main Android market is already saturated and has been for a couple of years now.
We are seeing convergence as a result but is some of the smaller non-niche players who are feeling the pinch. That said, much more effort is being put into other 'less developed' markets which have great potential. Obviously, without a change in business model, Apple will find it difficult to expand into those markets but has plenty of room to claim some of that 80% Android share.
Huawei isn't government funded. They've made that clear.
As for profit, they make more than enough to finance huge R&D budgets become more vertically integrated by the day and have huge plans for every rung on the tech ladder going forward. Some of those plans might seem scary to you:
I've posted a few times about Huawei's so called "employee ownership", and unless and until Huawei becomes more transparent in its financials, the West cannot assume that they are anything other than a state supported company.
Here's a response from a commenter of wrt the report and Huawei's response;
"Don: I think you know why Huawei objects so strongly to this English-language report, for which I congratulate you and Christopher. Huawei is fighting on multiple fronts what it views as a life-and-death struggle for markets in OECD countries where there seems to emerging a (excuse the expression) “united front” to keep Huawei out. The basis for this determination is the perceived domination of Huawei and every other PRC company by the Communist Party and their alignment with China’s geostrategic aims. Easily accessible commentary in English by knowledgeable foreign China experts which undermines the false narrative that Huawei is simply like every other private business corporation owned by its shareholders may defeat or hinder Huawei’s global ambition."
'perceived'. What a surprise.
Experts differ. Huawei could clear this up with transparency of their financials. They didn't do that.
Not for the China / Huawei haters. The smear campaign shall continue...
It's a darn shame Apple gradually priced itself out of the global smartphone market. There's no choice but to lower prices on iPhones because there aren't any features Apple could add to the iPhone to attract consumers. Apple really had a good iPhone business for so many years but I'm guessing those days are over. Apple certainly wasn't able to put any Chinese smartphone manufacturer out of business and each year those Chinese smartphone vendors got stronger by adding more features and building higher-quality smartphones. It seems as though Apple has lost its iPhone business in China with no hope of gaining those customers back. Every year, Apple loses more and more market share percentage. I wonder if that will ever stop. Android, as a whole, is just killing Apple in terms of market share percentage and there's nothing Apple can do about it except to find some alternate revenue streams.
Competitors have simply stepped ahead of Apple. It isn't that Apple can't compete. More that it simply chose notto and thought users would buy into the deal anyway. Call it arrogance, complacency or whatever you prefer but although Apple dropped the 'S' from the name, it still has an 'S' cycle. To make matters far, far worse, the that cycle sits within a yearly refresh cycle.
With regards to the competition, Apple has become a technological sloth. By the time Apple gets around to releasing a competitive product (assuming it is competitive) later this year, two years will have passed since the iPhone X.
To contrast that with Huawei, in the same period they released a flagship everyquarter. ....
The current strategy of offering lower priced phones which are old, really isn't going to keep users interested while they see all the advances coming to Android at attractive price points.
That's my master plan anyway. :-)
While I generally agree with you about Huawei, I disagree on this. Huawei, while not a newbie, simply doesn't have the reputation to protect. if they put out a phone with a defect, they can either shrug or fix it and move on. If Apple makes even the slightest of errors, it is international news and they are punished in every way shape or form -- even on a rumor that there might be a defect. ... So, Apple has to be cautious rather that constantly pushing the envelope as a Huawei can do.
And for using older to products to provide lower cost products: I think that is necessary because a big part of Apple's cost is not just the hardware (as it is for Huawei & Samsung) but Apple's software and ecosystem that others don't need to pay for -- so exploiting older designs and manufacturing systems helps them put out a quality, price competitive product. Plus, as I mentioned, Apple has to protect their reputation because they are held to a higher standard - so selling proven older phones is less risky than one designed to be cheap.
I mostly agree. The problem is that Apple is a slow mover in one the most dynamic consumer markets out there.
There's no problem in that as long as there are sales (although the 'markets' want growth in addition to sales). However, when sales flatten for so long and then contract you have two options: Do nothing (or virtually nothing) and hope the situation corrects itself (we all remember the rumoured 'supercycle') or you make changes to adapt to a new reality (saturation among others).
I think the second option is the only way forward now, given how much the smartphone world has changed/advanced.
I follow what you say on the difficulties and risks though.
The changes are already here and started with the 2017 refresh (which I applauded). First with the simple, low risk, changes. Last year they should have taken that a step further IMO but they chose to play safe and try to squeeze more money out of people by increasing prices and shipping a simply iterative upgrade with the usual 'storage upsell' to annoy users.
Two quarters down the road, it has backfired in a big way.
Other factors have come into play such as the 5G misstep and the 'batterygate' problems which have accentuated the underlying issues.
Rumours say the Kirin 985 will have the Balong 5000 on the SoC. If that is true, it means that every model that uses it (it will be announced in around four months) will automatically and natively be a 5G phone. That is going to be a huge amount of phones.
Others, in the mid range, will ship with the Kirin 980 + Balong 5000, which will be another huge amount of phones.
I would introduce an SE style iPhone around MWC2020 with an A12, hole punch LCD, rear mounted TouchID (shock!), gradient finish and an attractive price.
Something with a fresh design and plenty of power while not being at the very top end if the line and released out of the traditional iPhone refresh window.
You surely must be aware that Apple's iPhone generated more revenue, and at a much higher rate of profit, than Huawei's entire business did, for the quarter. Given that Huawei is state supported, they can live with very low rates of profit. In the West, that wouldn't be possible under stockholder ownership.
For you ASP's don't matter, but they do for corporations. Sooner than later, the Android OS Device Market will be saturated, and in decline. Do you really think that now is the time for Apple to reverse years of profitability to chase marketshare, when their iPhone user base keeps expanding.
For the record, I purchased a refurbished iPhone 8 for my brother yesterday for $349.00. I don't know if it was refurbished by Apple, or some third party, but I do know that that is a very good value. It is, interestingly enough, not much larger than the SE, and would certainly fulfill that position if and until Apple does create a replacement to the SE.
I am not concerned by Huawei's frequent product releases, nor Apple's lack of 5G for this fall. All they are doing is training customers to expect frequent new models, and price drops as they are replaced. You actually explained that to me as your "value" strategy.
Two, different, markets. Apple is an entire ecosystem including the iPhone, while Android OS device makers compete, for the most part, with each other based on hardware and UI. As the market saturates, there will be a race to the bottom until the device makers consolidate. That could begin, if it hasn't already, at any time.
Congratulations on the iPhone 8. That is a great price.
The main Android market is already saturated and has been for a couple of years now.
We are seeing convergence as a result but is some of the smaller non-niche players who are feeling the pinch. That said, much more effort is being put into other 'less developed' markets which have great potential. Obviously, without a change in business model, Apple will find it difficult to expand into those markets but has plenty of room to claim some of that 80% Android share.
Huawei isn't government funded. They've made that clear.
As for profit, they make more than enough to finance huge R&D budgets become more vertically integrated by the day and have huge plans for every rung on the tech ladder going forward. Some of those plans might seem scary to you:
I've posted a few times about Huawei's so called "employee ownership", and unless and until Huawei becomes more transparent in its financials, the West cannot assume that they are anything other than a state supported company.
Here's a response from a commenter of wrt the report and Huawei's response;
"Don: I think you know why Huawei objects so strongly to this English-language report, for which I congratulate you and Christopher. Huawei is fighting on multiple fronts what it views as a life-and-death struggle for markets in OECD countries where there seems to emerging a (excuse the expression) “united front” to keep Huawei out. The basis for this determination is the perceived domination of Huawei and every other PRC company by the Communist Party and their alignment with China’s geostrategic aims. Easily accessible commentary in English by knowledgeable foreign China experts which undermines the false narrative that Huawei is simply like every other private business corporation owned by its shareholders may defeat or hinder Huawei’s global ambition."
'perceived'. What a surprise.
Experts differ. Huawei could clear this up with transparency of their financials. They didn't do that.
Not for the China / Huawei haters. The smear campaign shall continue...
"“The customer – whether the government, operator, or manufacturer – must be able to be informed about the origin and pedigree of components and software that affect the security level of the product or service,” read the “Prague Proposal” document handed out at the end of the conference in the Czech capital.
“The overall risk of influence on a supplier by a third country should be taken into account, notably in relation to its model of governance, the absence of cooperation agreements on security,” the statement said.
It's a darn shame Apple gradually priced itself out of the global smartphone market. There's no choice but to lower prices on iPhones because there aren't any features Apple could add to the iPhone to attract consumers. Apple really had a good iPhone business for so many years but I'm guessing those days are over. Apple certainly wasn't able to put any Chinese smartphone manufacturer out of business and each year those Chinese smartphone vendors got stronger by adding more features and building higher-quality smartphones. It seems as though Apple has lost its iPhone business in China with no hope of gaining those customers back. Every year, Apple loses more and more market share percentage. I wonder if that will ever stop. Android, as a whole, is just killing Apple in terms of market share percentage and there's nothing Apple can do about it except to find some alternate revenue streams.
Competitors have simply stepped ahead of Apple. It isn't that Apple can't compete. More that it simply chose notto and thought users would buy into the deal anyway. Call it arrogance, complacency or whatever you prefer but although Apple dropped the 'S' from the name, it still has an 'S' cycle. To make matters far, far worse, the that cycle sits within a yearly refresh cycle.
With regards to the competition, Apple has become a technological sloth. By the time Apple gets around to releasing a competitive product (assuming it is competitive) later this year, two years will have passed since the iPhone X.
To contrast that with Huawei, in the same period they released a flagship everyquarter. ....
The current strategy of offering lower priced phones which are old, really isn't going to keep users interested while they see all the advances coming to Android at attractive price points.
That's my master plan anyway. :-)
While I generally agree with you about Huawei, I disagree on this. Huawei, while not a newbie, simply doesn't have the reputation to protect. if they put out a phone with a defect, they can either shrug or fix it and move on. If Apple makes even the slightest of errors, it is international news and they are punished in every way shape or form -- even on a rumor that there might be a defect. ... So, Apple has to be cautious rather that constantly pushing the envelope as a Huawei can do.
And for using older to products to provide lower cost products: I think that is necessary because a big part of Apple's cost is not just the hardware (as it is for Huawei & Samsung) but Apple's software and ecosystem that others don't need to pay for -- so exploiting older designs and manufacturing systems helps them put out a quality, price competitive product. Plus, as I mentioned, Apple has to protect their reputation because they are held to a higher standard - so selling proven older phones is less risky than one designed to be cheap.
I mostly agree. The problem is that Apple is a slow mover in one the most dynamic consumer markets out there.
There's no problem in that as long as there are sales (although the 'markets' want growth in addition to sales). However, when sales flatten for so long and then contract you have two options: Do nothing (or virtually nothing) and hope the situation corrects itself (we all remember the rumoured 'supercycle') or you make changes to adapt to a new reality (saturation among others).
I think the second option is the only way forward now, given how much the smartphone world has changed/advanced.
I follow what you say on the difficulties and risks though.
The changes are already here and started with the 2017 refresh (which I applauded). First with the simple, low risk, changes. Last year they should have taken that a step further IMO but they chose to play safe and try to squeeze more money out of people by increasing prices and shipping a simply iterative upgrade with the usual 'storage upsell' to annoy users.
Two quarters down the road, it has backfired in a big way.
Other factors have come into play such as the 5G misstep and the 'batterygate' problems which have accentuated the underlying issues.
Rumours say the Kirin 985 will have the Balong 5000 on the SoC. If that is true, it means that every model that uses it (it will be announced in around four months) will automatically and natively be a 5G phone. That is going to be a huge amount of phones.
Others, in the mid range, will ship with the Kirin 980 + Balong 5000, which will be another huge amount of phones.
I would introduce an SE style iPhone around MWC2020 with an A12, hole punch LCD, rear mounted TouchID (shock!), gradient finish and an attractive price.
Something with a fresh design and plenty of power while not being at the very top end if the line and released out of the traditional iPhone refresh window.
You surely must be aware that Apple's iPhone generated more revenue, and at a much higher rate of profit, than Huawei's entire business did, for the quarter. Given that Huawei is state supported, they can live with very low rates of profit. In the West, that wouldn't be possible under stockholder ownership.
For you ASP's don't matter, but they do for corporations. Sooner than later, the Android OS Device Market will be saturated, and in decline. Do you really think that now is the time for Apple to reverse years of profitability to chase marketshare, when their iPhone user base keeps expanding.
For the record, I purchased a refurbished iPhone 8 for my brother yesterday for $349.00. I don't know if it was refurbished by Apple, or some third party, but I do know that that is a very good value. It is, interestingly enough, not much larger than the SE, and would certainly fulfill that position if and until Apple does create a replacement to the SE.
I am not concerned by Huawei's frequent product releases, nor Apple's lack of 5G for this fall. All they are doing is training customers to expect frequent new models, and price drops as they are replaced. You actually explained that to me as your "value" strategy.
Two, different, markets. Apple is an entire ecosystem including the iPhone, while Android OS device makers compete, for the most part, with each other based on hardware and UI. As the market saturates, there will be a race to the bottom until the device makers consolidate. That could begin, if it hasn't already, at any time.
Congratulations on the iPhone 8. That is a great price.
The main Android market is already saturated and has been for a couple of years now.
We are seeing convergence as a result but is some of the smaller non-niche players who are feeling the pinch. That said, much more effort is being put into other 'less developed' markets which have great potential. Obviously, without a change in business model, Apple will find it difficult to expand into those markets but has plenty of room to claim some of that 80% Android share.
Huawei isn't government funded. They've made that clear.
As for profit, they make more than enough to finance huge R&D budgets become more vertically integrated by the day and have huge plans for every rung on the tech ladder going forward. Some of those plans might seem scary to you:
I've posted a few times about Huawei's so called "employee ownership", and unless and until Huawei becomes more transparent in its financials, the West cannot assume that they are anything other than a state supported company.
Here's a response from a commenter of wrt the report and Huawei's response;
"Don: I think you know why Huawei objects so strongly to this English-language report, for which I congratulate you and Christopher. Huawei is fighting on multiple fronts what it views as a life-and-death struggle for markets in OECD countries where there seems to emerging a (excuse the expression) “united front” to keep Huawei out. The basis for this determination is the perceived domination of Huawei and every other PRC company by the Communist Party and their alignment with China’s geostrategic aims. Easily accessible commentary in English by knowledgeable foreign China experts which undermines the false narrative that Huawei is simply like every other private business corporation owned by its shareholders may defeat or hinder Huawei’s global ambition."
'perceived'. What a surprise.
Experts differ. Huawei could clear this up with transparency of their financials. They didn't do that.
Huawei, much to your chagrin is a private company. As such it provides audited accounts and complies with Chinese law.
It has made statements on everything that you have protested about but if you still don't believe them, it's time to let go.
As for connections with the Chinese government, chew on this:
Tim Cook has had many private one-on-ones with Donald Trump. It is said that he received promises from the president that Apple would not be affected by tariff changes in the dispute with China. Tariffs that directly impact Huawei's business.
So, on the one hand Apple is being favoured to the tune of millions while Huawei is being impacted to the tune of millions.
If this were the other way around and it was the CEO of Huawei having one-on-ones with the president of China to lobby for protection of its business, you would be howling about it.
It's a darn shame Apple gradually priced itself out of the global smartphone market. There's no choice but to lower prices on iPhones because there aren't any features Apple could add to the iPhone to attract consumers. Apple really had a good iPhone business for so many years but I'm guessing those days are over. Apple certainly wasn't able to put any Chinese smartphone manufacturer out of business and each year those Chinese smartphone vendors got stronger by adding more features and building higher-quality smartphones. It seems as though Apple has lost its iPhone business in China with no hope of gaining those customers back. Every year, Apple loses more and more market share percentage. I wonder if that will ever stop. Android, as a whole, is just killing Apple in terms of market share percentage and there's nothing Apple can do about it except to find some alternate revenue streams.
Competitors have simply stepped ahead of Apple. It isn't that Apple can't compete. More that it simply chose notto and thought users would buy into the deal anyway. Call it arrogance, complacency or whatever you prefer but although Apple dropped the 'S' from the name, it still has an 'S' cycle. To make matters far, far worse, the that cycle sits within a yearly refresh cycle.
With regards to the competition, Apple has become a technological sloth. By the time Apple gets around to releasing a competitive product (assuming it is competitive) later this year, two years will have passed since the iPhone X.
To contrast that with Huawei, in the same period they released a flagship everyquarter. ....
The current strategy of offering lower priced phones which are old, really isn't going to keep users interested while they see all the advances coming to Android at attractive price points.
That's my master plan anyway. :-)
While I generally agree with you about Huawei, I disagree on this. Huawei, while not a newbie, simply doesn't have the reputation to protect. if they put out a phone with a defect, they can either shrug or fix it and move on. If Apple makes even the slightest of errors, it is international news and they are punished in every way shape or form -- even on a rumor that there might be a defect. ... So, Apple has to be cautious rather that constantly pushing the envelope as a Huawei can do.
And for using older to products to provide lower cost products: I think that is necessary because a big part of Apple's cost is not just the hardware (as it is for Huawei & Samsung) but Apple's software and ecosystem that others don't need to pay for -- so exploiting older designs and manufacturing systems helps them put out a quality, price competitive product. Plus, as I mentioned, Apple has to protect their reputation because they are held to a higher standard - so selling proven older phones is less risky than one designed to be cheap.
I mostly agree. The problem is that Apple is a slow mover in one the most dynamic consumer markets out there.
There's no problem in that as long as there are sales (although the 'markets' want growth in addition to sales). However, when sales flatten for so long and then contract you have two options: Do nothing (or virtually nothing) and hope the situation corrects itself (we all remember the rumoured 'supercycle') or you make changes to adapt to a new reality (saturation among others).
I think the second option is the only way forward now, given how much the smartphone world has changed/advanced.
I follow what you say on the difficulties and risks though.
The changes are already here and started with the 2017 refresh (which I applauded). First with the simple, low risk, changes. Last year they should have taken that a step further IMO but they chose to play safe and try to squeeze more money out of people by increasing prices and shipping a simply iterative upgrade with the usual 'storage upsell' to annoy users.
Two quarters down the road, it has backfired in a big way.
Other factors have come into play such as the 5G misstep and the 'batterygate' problems which have accentuated the underlying issues.
Rumours say the Kirin 985 will have the Balong 5000 on the SoC. If that is true, it means that every model that uses it (it will be announced in around four months) will automatically and natively be a 5G phone. That is going to be a huge amount of phones.
Others, in the mid range, will ship with the Kirin 980 + Balong 5000, which will be another huge amount of phones.
I would introduce an SE style iPhone around MWC2020 with an A12, hole punch LCD, rear mounted TouchID (shock!), gradient finish and an attractive price.
Something with a fresh design and plenty of power while not being at the very top end if the line and released out of the traditional iPhone refresh window.
You surely must be aware that Apple's iPhone generated more revenue, and at a much higher rate of profit, than Huawei's entire business did, for the quarter. Given that Huawei is state supported, they can live with very low rates of profit. In the West, that wouldn't be possible under stockholder ownership.
For you ASP's don't matter, but they do for corporations. Sooner than later, the Android OS Device Market will be saturated, and in decline. Do you really think that now is the time for Apple to reverse years of profitability to chase marketshare, when their iPhone user base keeps expanding.
For the record, I purchased a refurbished iPhone 8 for my brother yesterday for $349.00. I don't know if it was refurbished by Apple, or some third party, but I do know that that is a very good value. It is, interestingly enough, not much larger than the SE, and would certainly fulfill that position if and until Apple does create a replacement to the SE.
I am not concerned by Huawei's frequent product releases, nor Apple's lack of 5G for this fall. All they are doing is training customers to expect frequent new models, and price drops as they are replaced. You actually explained that to me as your "value" strategy.
Two, different, markets. Apple is an entire ecosystem including the iPhone, while Android OS device makers compete, for the most part, with each other based on hardware and UI. As the market saturates, there will be a race to the bottom until the device makers consolidate. That could begin, if it hasn't already, at any time.
Congratulations on the iPhone 8. That is a great price.
The main Android market is already saturated and has been for a couple of years now.
We are seeing convergence as a result but is some of the smaller non-niche players who are feeling the pinch. That said, much more effort is being put into other 'less developed' markets which have great potential. Obviously, without a change in business model, Apple will find it difficult to expand into those markets but has plenty of room to claim some of that 80% Android share.
Huawei isn't government funded. They've made that clear.
As for profit, they make more than enough to finance huge R&D budgets become more vertically integrated by the day and have huge plans for every rung on the tech ladder going forward. Some of those plans might seem scary to you:
I've posted a few times about Huawei's so called "employee ownership", and unless and until Huawei becomes more transparent in its financials, the West cannot assume that they are anything other than a state supported company.
Here's a response from a commenter of wrt the report and Huawei's response;
"Don: I think you know why Huawei objects so strongly to this English-language report, for which I congratulate you and Christopher. Huawei is fighting on multiple fronts what it views as a life-and-death struggle for markets in OECD countries where there seems to emerging a (excuse the expression) “united front” to keep Huawei out. The basis for this determination is the perceived domination of Huawei and every other PRC company by the Communist Party and their alignment with China’s geostrategic aims. Easily accessible commentary in English by knowledgeable foreign China experts which undermines the false narrative that Huawei is simply like every other private business corporation owned by its shareholders may defeat or hinder Huawei’s global ambition."
'perceived'. What a surprise.
Experts differ. Huawei could clear this up with transparency of their financials. They didn't do that.
Not for the China / Huawei haters. The smear campaign shall continue...
"“The customer – whether the government, operator, or manufacturer – must be able to be informed about the origin and pedigree of components and software that affect the security level of the product or service,” read the “Prague Proposal” document handed out at the end of the conference in the Czech capital.
“The overall risk of influence on a supplier by a third country should be taken into account, notably in relation to its model of governance, the absence of cooperation agreements on security,” the statement said.
You do realise that the same issues were brought up and discussed at MWC2019 don't you? And that Huawei was one if the driving forces behind it.
It's a darn shame Apple gradually priced itself out of the global smartphone market. There's no choice but to lower prices on iPhones because there aren't any features Apple could add to the iPhone to attract consumers. Apple really had a good iPhone business for so many years but I'm guessing those days are over. Apple certainly wasn't able to put any Chinese smartphone manufacturer out of business and each year those Chinese smartphone vendors got stronger by adding more features and building higher-quality smartphones. It seems as though Apple has lost its iPhone business in China with no hope of gaining those customers back. Every year, Apple loses more and more market share percentage. I wonder if that will ever stop. Android, as a whole, is just killing Apple in terms of market share percentage and there's nothing Apple can do about it except to find some alternate revenue streams.
Competitors have simply stepped ahead of Apple. It isn't that Apple can't compete. More that it simply chose notto and thought users would buy into the deal anyway. Call it arrogance, complacency or whatever you prefer but although Apple dropped the 'S' from the name, it still has an 'S' cycle. To make matters far, far worse, the that cycle sits within a yearly refresh cycle.
With regards to the competition, Apple has become a technological sloth. By the time Apple gets around to releasing a competitive product (assuming it is competitive) later this year, two years will have passed since the iPhone X.
To contrast that with Huawei, in the same period they released a flagship everyquarter. ....
The current strategy of offering lower priced phones which are old, really isn't going to keep users interested while they see all the advances coming to Android at attractive price points.
That's my master plan anyway. :-)
While I generally agree with you about Huawei, I disagree on this. Huawei, while not a newbie, simply doesn't have the reputation to protect. if they put out a phone with a defect, they can either shrug or fix it and move on. If Apple makes even the slightest of errors, it is international news and they are punished in every way shape or form -- even on a rumor that there might be a defect. ... So, Apple has to be cautious rather that constantly pushing the envelope as a Huawei can do.
And for using older to products to provide lower cost products: I think that is necessary because a big part of Apple's cost is not just the hardware (as it is for Huawei & Samsung) but Apple's software and ecosystem that others don't need to pay for -- so exploiting older designs and manufacturing systems helps them put out a quality, price competitive product. Plus, as I mentioned, Apple has to protect their reputation because they are held to a higher standard - so selling proven older phones is less risky than one designed to be cheap.
I mostly agree. The problem is that Apple is a slow mover in one the most dynamic consumer markets out there.
There's no problem in that as long as there are sales (although the 'markets' want growth in addition to sales). However, when sales flatten for so long and then contract you have two options: Do nothing (or virtually nothing) and hope the situation corrects itself (we all remember the rumoured 'supercycle') or you make changes to adapt to a new reality (saturation among others).
I think the second option is the only way forward now, given how much the smartphone world has changed/advanced.
I follow what you say on the difficulties and risks though.
The changes are already here and started with the 2017 refresh (which I applauded). First with the simple, low risk, changes. Last year they should have taken that a step further IMO but they chose to play safe and try to squeeze more money out of people by increasing prices and shipping a simply iterative upgrade with the usual 'storage upsell' to annoy users.
Two quarters down the road, it has backfired in a big way.
Other factors have come into play such as the 5G misstep and the 'batterygate' problems which have accentuated the underlying issues.
Rumours say the Kirin 985 will have the Balong 5000 on the SoC. If that is true, it means that every model that uses it (it will be announced in around four months) will automatically and natively be a 5G phone. That is going to be a huge amount of phones.
Others, in the mid range, will ship with the Kirin 980 + Balong 5000, which will be another huge amount of phones.
I would introduce an SE style iPhone around MWC2020 with an A12, hole punch LCD, rear mounted TouchID (shock!), gradient finish and an attractive price.
Something with a fresh design and plenty of power while not being at the very top end if the line and released out of the traditional iPhone refresh window.
You surely must be aware that Apple's iPhone generated more revenue, and at a much higher rate of profit, than Huawei's entire business did, for the quarter. Given that Huawei is state supported, they can live with very low rates of profit. In the West, that wouldn't be possible under stockholder ownership.
For you ASP's don't matter, but they do for corporations. Sooner than later, the Android OS Device Market will be saturated, and in decline. Do you really think that now is the time for Apple to reverse years of profitability to chase marketshare, when their iPhone user base keeps expanding.
For the record, I purchased a refurbished iPhone 8 for my brother yesterday for $349.00. I don't know if it was refurbished by Apple, or some third party, but I do know that that is a very good value. It is, interestingly enough, not much larger than the SE, and would certainly fulfill that position if and until Apple does create a replacement to the SE.
I am not concerned by Huawei's frequent product releases, nor Apple's lack of 5G for this fall. All they are doing is training customers to expect frequent new models, and price drops as they are replaced. You actually explained that to me as your "value" strategy.
Two, different, markets. Apple is an entire ecosystem including the iPhone, while Android OS device makers compete, for the most part, with each other based on hardware and UI. As the market saturates, there will be a race to the bottom until the device makers consolidate. That could begin, if it hasn't already, at any time.
Congratulations on the iPhone 8. That is a great price.
The main Android market is already saturated and has been for a couple of years now.
We are seeing convergence as a result but is some of the smaller non-niche players who are feeling the pinch. That said, much more effort is being put into other 'less developed' markets which have great potential. Obviously, without a change in business model, Apple will find it difficult to expand into those markets but has plenty of room to claim some of that 80% Android share.
Huawei isn't government funded. They've made that clear.
As for profit, they make more than enough to finance huge R&D budgets become more vertically integrated by the day and have huge plans for every rung on the tech ladder going forward. Some of those plans might seem scary to you:
I've posted a few times about Huawei's so called "employee ownership", and unless and until Huawei becomes more transparent in its financials, the West cannot assume that they are anything other than a state supported company.
Here's a response from a commenter of wrt the report and Huawei's response;
"Don: I think you know why Huawei objects so strongly to this English-language report, for which I congratulate you and Christopher. Huawei is fighting on multiple fronts what it views as a life-and-death struggle for markets in OECD countries where there seems to emerging a (excuse the expression) “united front” to keep Huawei out. The basis for this determination is the perceived domination of Huawei and every other PRC company by the Communist Party and their alignment with China’s geostrategic aims. Easily accessible commentary in English by knowledgeable foreign China experts which undermines the false narrative that Huawei is simply like every other private business corporation owned by its shareholders may defeat or hinder Huawei’s global ambition."
'perceived'. What a surprise.
Experts differ. Huawei could clear this up with transparency of their financials. They didn't do that.
Huawei, much to your chagrin is a private company. As such it provides audited accounts and complies with Chinese law.
It has made statements on everything that you have protested about but if you still don't believe them, it's time to let go.
As for connections with the Chinese government, chew on this:
Tim Cook has had many private one-on-ones with Donald Trump. It is said that he received promises from the president that Apple would not be affected by tariff changes in the dispute with China. Tariffs that directly impact Huawei's business.
So, on the one hand Apple is being favoured to the tune of millions while Huawei is being impacted to the tune of millions.
If this were the other way around and it was the CEO of Huawei having one-on-ones with the president of China to lobby for protection of its business, you would be howling about it.
Chinese Law; isn't that controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, aka, the Chinese Government?
Of course, you won't read it, because of your obvious bias.
Here's the summary;
In summary, we find the following:
The Huawei operating company is 100% owned by a holding company, which is in turn approximately 1% owned by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and 99% owned by an entity called a “trade union committee” for the holding company.
We know nothing about the internal governance procedures of the trade union committee. We do not know who the committee members or other trade union leaders are, or how they are selected.
Trade union members have no right to assets held by a trade union.
What have been called “employee shares” in “Huawei” are in fact at most contractual
interests in a profit-sharing scheme.
Given the public nature of trade unions in China, if the ownership stake of the trade union
committee is genuine, and if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions
generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned.
Regardless of who, in a practical sense, owns and controls Huawei, it is clear that the
It's a darn shame Apple gradually priced itself out of the global smartphone market. There's no choice but to lower prices on iPhones because there aren't any features Apple could add to the iPhone to attract consumers. Apple really had a good iPhone business for so many years but I'm guessing those days are over. Apple certainly wasn't able to put any Chinese smartphone manufacturer out of business and each year those Chinese smartphone vendors got stronger by adding more features and building higher-quality smartphones. It seems as though Apple has lost its iPhone business in China with no hope of gaining those customers back. Every year, Apple loses more and more market share percentage. I wonder if that will ever stop. Android, as a whole, is just killing Apple in terms of market share percentage and there's nothing Apple can do about it except to find some alternate revenue streams.
Competitors have simply stepped ahead of Apple. It isn't that Apple can't compete. More that it simply chose notto and thought users would buy into the deal anyway. Call it arrogance, complacency or whatever you prefer but although Apple dropped the 'S' from the name, it still has an 'S' cycle. To make matters far, far worse, the that cycle sits within a yearly refresh cycle.
With regards to the competition, Apple has become a technological sloth. By the time Apple gets around to releasing a competitive product (assuming it is competitive) later this year, two years will have passed since the iPhone X.
To contrast that with Huawei, in the same period they released a flagship everyquarter. ....
The current strategy of offering lower priced phones which are old, really isn't going to keep users interested while they see all the advances coming to Android at attractive price points.
That's my master plan anyway. :-)
While I generally agree with you about Huawei, I disagree on this. Huawei, while not a newbie, simply doesn't have the reputation to protect. if they put out a phone with a defect, they can either shrug or fix it and move on. If Apple makes even the slightest of errors, it is international news and they are punished in every way shape or form -- even on a rumor that there might be a defect. ... So, Apple has to be cautious rather that constantly pushing the envelope as a Huawei can do.
And for using older to products to provide lower cost products: I think that is necessary because a big part of Apple's cost is not just the hardware (as it is for Huawei & Samsung) but Apple's software and ecosystem that others don't need to pay for -- so exploiting older designs and manufacturing systems helps them put out a quality, price competitive product. Plus, as I mentioned, Apple has to protect their reputation because they are held to a higher standard - so selling proven older phones is less risky than one designed to be cheap.
I mostly agree. The problem is that Apple is a slow mover in one the most dynamic consumer markets out there.
There's no problem in that as long as there are sales (although the 'markets' want growth in addition to sales). However, when sales flatten for so long and then contract you have two options: Do nothing (or virtually nothing) and hope the situation corrects itself (we all remember the rumoured 'supercycle') or you make changes to adapt to a new reality (saturation among others).
I think the second option is the only way forward now, given how much the smartphone world has changed/advanced.
I follow what you say on the difficulties and risks though.
The changes are already here and started with the 2017 refresh (which I applauded). First with the simple, low risk, changes. Last year they should have taken that a step further IMO but they chose to play safe and try to squeeze more money out of people by increasing prices and shipping a simply iterative upgrade with the usual 'storage upsell' to annoy users.
Two quarters down the road, it has backfired in a big way.
Other factors have come into play such as the 5G misstep and the 'batterygate' problems which have accentuated the underlying issues.
Rumours say the Kirin 985 will have the Balong 5000 on the SoC. If that is true, it means that every model that uses it (it will be announced in around four months) will automatically and natively be a 5G phone. That is going to be a huge amount of phones.
Others, in the mid range, will ship with the Kirin 980 + Balong 5000, which will be another huge amount of phones.
I would introduce an SE style iPhone around MWC2020 with an A12, hole punch LCD, rear mounted TouchID (shock!), gradient finish and an attractive price.
Something with a fresh design and plenty of power while not being at the very top end if the line and released out of the traditional iPhone refresh window.
You surely must be aware that Apple's iPhone generated more revenue, and at a much higher rate of profit, than Huawei's entire business did, for the quarter. Given that Huawei is state supported, they can live with very low rates of profit. In the West, that wouldn't be possible under stockholder ownership.
For you ASP's don't matter, but they do for corporations. Sooner than later, the Android OS Device Market will be saturated, and in decline. Do you really think that now is the time for Apple to reverse years of profitability to chase marketshare, when their iPhone user base keeps expanding.
For the record, I purchased a refurbished iPhone 8 for my brother yesterday for $349.00. I don't know if it was refurbished by Apple, or some third party, but I do know that that is a very good value. It is, interestingly enough, not much larger than the SE, and would certainly fulfill that position if and until Apple does create a replacement to the SE.
I am not concerned by Huawei's frequent product releases, nor Apple's lack of 5G for this fall. All they are doing is training customers to expect frequent new models, and price drops as they are replaced. You actually explained that to me as your "value" strategy.
Two, different, markets. Apple is an entire ecosystem including the iPhone, while Android OS device makers compete, for the most part, with each other based on hardware and UI. As the market saturates, there will be a race to the bottom until the device makers consolidate. That could begin, if it hasn't already, at any time.
Congratulations on the iPhone 8. That is a great price.
The main Android market is already saturated and has been for a couple of years now.
We are seeing convergence as a result but is some of the smaller non-niche players who are feeling the pinch. That said, much more effort is being put into other 'less developed' markets which have great potential. Obviously, without a change in business model, Apple will find it difficult to expand into those markets but has plenty of room to claim some of that 80% Android share.
Huawei isn't government funded. They've made that clear.
As for profit, they make more than enough to finance huge R&D budgets become more vertically integrated by the day and have huge plans for every rung on the tech ladder going forward. Some of those plans might seem scary to you:
I've posted a few times about Huawei's so called "employee ownership", and unless and until Huawei becomes more transparent in its financials, the West cannot assume that they are anything other than a state supported company.
Here's a response from a commenter of wrt the report and Huawei's response;
"Don: I think you know why Huawei objects so strongly to this English-language report, for which I congratulate you and Christopher. Huawei is fighting on multiple fronts what it views as a life-and-death struggle for markets in OECD countries where there seems to emerging a (excuse the expression) “united front” to keep Huawei out. The basis for this determination is the perceived domination of Huawei and every other PRC company by the Communist Party and their alignment with China’s geostrategic aims. Easily accessible commentary in English by knowledgeable foreign China experts which undermines the false narrative that Huawei is simply like every other private business corporation owned by its shareholders may defeat or hinder Huawei’s global ambition."
'perceived'. What a surprise.
Experts differ. Huawei could clear this up with transparency of their financials. They didn't do that.
Huawei, much to your chagrin is a private company. As such it provides audited accounts and complies with Chinese law.
It has made statements on everything that you have protested about but if you still don't believe them, it's time to let go.
As for connections with the Chinese government, chew on this:
Tim Cook has had many private one-on-ones with Donald Trump. It is said that he received promises from the president that Apple would not be affected by tariff changes in the dispute with China. Tariffs that directly impact Huawei's business.
So, on the one hand Apple is being favoured to the tune of millions while Huawei is being impacted to the tune of millions.
If this were the other way around and it was the CEO of Huawei having one-on-ones with the president of China to lobby for protection of its business, you would be howling about it.
Chinese Law; isn't that controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, aka, the Chinese Government?
Of course, you won't read it, because of your obvious bias.
Here's the summary;
In summary, we find the following:
The Huawei operating company is 100% owned by a holding company, which is in turn approximately 1% owned by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and 99% owned by an entity called a “trade union committee” for the holding company.
We know nothing about the internal governance procedures of the trade union committee. We do not know who the committee members or other trade union leaders are, or how they are selected.
Trade union members have no right to assets held by a trade union.
What have been called “employee shares” in “Huawei” are in fact at most contractual
interests in a profit-sharing scheme.
Given the public nature of trade unions in China, if the ownership stake of the trade union
committee is genuine, and if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions
generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned.
Regardless of who, in a practical sense, owns and controls Huawei, it is clear that the
employees do not.
Did you read Huawei's response to that?
The paper itself wasn't able to categorically state anything without qualify the affirmations beforehand.
There simply isn't enough publicly available documentation to draw that kind of certainty.
I take note that instead of providing a retort to my point you fell back on something that has been dealt with by me at least three times in replies to you.
It's a darn shame Apple gradually priced itself out of the global smartphone market. There's no choice but to lower prices on iPhones because there aren't any features Apple could add to the iPhone to attract consumers. Apple really had a good iPhone business for so many years but I'm guessing those days are over. Apple certainly wasn't able to put any Chinese smartphone manufacturer out of business and each year those Chinese smartphone vendors got stronger by adding more features and building higher-quality smartphones. It seems as though Apple has lost its iPhone business in China with no hope of gaining those customers back. Every year, Apple loses more and more market share percentage. I wonder if that will ever stop. Android, as a whole, is just killing Apple in terms of market share percentage and there's nothing Apple can do about it except to find some alternate revenue streams.
Competitors have simply stepped ahead of Apple. It isn't that Apple can't compete. More that it simply chose notto and thought users would buy into the deal anyway. Call it arrogance, complacency or whatever you prefer but although Apple dropped the 'S' from the name, it still has an 'S' cycle. To make matters far, far worse, the that cycle sits within a yearly refresh cycle.
With regards to the competition, Apple has become a technological sloth. By the time Apple gets around to releasing a competitive product (assuming it is competitive) later this year, two years will have passed since the iPhone X.
To contrast that with Huawei, in the same period they released a flagship everyquarter. ....
The current strategy of offering lower priced phones which are old, really isn't going to keep users interested while they see all the advances coming to Android at attractive price points.
That's my master plan anyway. :-)
While I generally agree with you about Huawei, I disagree on this. Huawei, while not a newbie, simply doesn't have the reputation to protect. if they put out a phone with a defect, they can either shrug or fix it and move on. If Apple makes even the slightest of errors, it is international news and they are punished in every way shape or form -- even on a rumor that there might be a defect. ... So, Apple has to be cautious rather that constantly pushing the envelope as a Huawei can do.
And for using older to products to provide lower cost products: I think that is necessary because a big part of Apple's cost is not just the hardware (as it is for Huawei & Samsung) but Apple's software and ecosystem that others don't need to pay for -- so exploiting older designs and manufacturing systems helps them put out a quality, price competitive product. Plus, as I mentioned, Apple has to protect their reputation because they are held to a higher standard - so selling proven older phones is less risky than one designed to be cheap.
I mostly agree. The problem is that Apple is a slow mover in one the most dynamic consumer markets out there.
There's no problem in that as long as there are sales (although the 'markets' want growth in addition to sales). However, when sales flatten for so long and then contract you have two options: Do nothing (or virtually nothing) and hope the situation corrects itself (we all remember the rumoured 'supercycle') or you make changes to adapt to a new reality (saturation among others).
I think the second option is the only way forward now, given how much the smartphone world has changed/advanced.
I follow what you say on the difficulties and risks though.
The changes are already here and started with the 2017 refresh (which I applauded). First with the simple, low risk, changes. Last year they should have taken that a step further IMO but they chose to play safe and try to squeeze more money out of people by increasing prices and shipping a simply iterative upgrade with the usual 'storage upsell' to annoy users.
Two quarters down the road, it has backfired in a big way.
Other factors have come into play such as the 5G misstep and the 'batterygate' problems which have accentuated the underlying issues.
Rumours say the Kirin 985 will have the Balong 5000 on the SoC. If that is true, it means that every model that uses it (it will be announced in around four months) will automatically and natively be a 5G phone. That is going to be a huge amount of phones.
Others, in the mid range, will ship with the Kirin 980 + Balong 5000, which will be another huge amount of phones.
I would introduce an SE style iPhone around MWC2020 with an A12, hole punch LCD, rear mounted TouchID (shock!), gradient finish and an attractive price.
Something with a fresh design and plenty of power while not being at the very top end if the line and released out of the traditional iPhone refresh window.
You surely must be aware that Apple's iPhone generated more revenue, and at a much higher rate of profit, than Huawei's entire business did, for the quarter. Given that Huawei is state supported, they can live with very low rates of profit. In the West, that wouldn't be possible under stockholder ownership.
For you ASP's don't matter, but they do for corporations. Sooner than later, the Android OS Device Market will be saturated, and in decline. Do you really think that now is the time for Apple to reverse years of profitability to chase marketshare, when their iPhone user base keeps expanding.
For the record, I purchased a refurbished iPhone 8 for my brother yesterday for $349.00. I don't know if it was refurbished by Apple, or some third party, but I do know that that is a very good value. It is, interestingly enough, not much larger than the SE, and would certainly fulfill that position if and until Apple does create a replacement to the SE.
I am not concerned by Huawei's frequent product releases, nor Apple's lack of 5G for this fall. All they are doing is training customers to expect frequent new models, and price drops as they are replaced. You actually explained that to me as your "value" strategy.
Two, different, markets. Apple is an entire ecosystem including the iPhone, while Android OS device makers compete, for the most part, with each other based on hardware and UI. As the market saturates, there will be a race to the bottom until the device makers consolidate. That could begin, if it hasn't already, at any time.
Congratulations on the iPhone 8. That is a great price.
The main Android market is already saturated and has been for a couple of years now.
We are seeing convergence as a result but is some of the smaller non-niche players who are feeling the pinch. That said, much more effort is being put into other 'less developed' markets which have great potential. Obviously, without a change in business model, Apple will find it difficult to expand into those markets but has plenty of room to claim some of that 80% Android share.
Huawei isn't government funded. They've made that clear.
As for profit, they make more than enough to finance huge R&D budgets become more vertically integrated by the day and have huge plans for every rung on the tech ladder going forward. Some of those plans might seem scary to you:
I've posted a few times about Huawei's so called "employee ownership", and unless and until Huawei becomes more transparent in its financials, the West cannot assume that they are anything other than a state supported company.
Here's a response from a commenter of wrt the report and Huawei's response;
"Don: I think you know why Huawei objects so strongly to this English-language report, for which I congratulate you and Christopher. Huawei is fighting on multiple fronts what it views as a life-and-death struggle for markets in OECD countries where there seems to emerging a (excuse the expression) “united front” to keep Huawei out. The basis for this determination is the perceived domination of Huawei and every other PRC company by the Communist Party and their alignment with China’s geostrategic aims. Easily accessible commentary in English by knowledgeable foreign China experts which undermines the false narrative that Huawei is simply like every other private business corporation owned by its shareholders may defeat or hinder Huawei’s global ambition."
'perceived'. What a surprise.
Experts differ. Huawei could clear this up with transparency of their financials. They didn't do that.
Huawei, much to your chagrin is a private company. As such it provides audited accounts and complies with Chinese law.
It has made statements on everything that you have protested about but if you still don't believe them, it's time to let go.
As for connections with the Chinese government, chew on this:
Tim Cook has had many private one-on-ones with Donald Trump. It is said that he received promises from the president that Apple would not be affected by tariff changes in the dispute with China. Tariffs that directly impact Huawei's business.
So, on the one hand Apple is being favoured to the tune of millions while Huawei is being impacted to the tune of millions.
If this were the other way around and it was the CEO of Huawei having one-on-ones with the president of China to lobby for protection of its business, you would be howling about it.
Chinese Law; isn't that controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, aka, the Chinese Government?
Of course, you won't read it, because of your obvious bias.
Here's the summary;
In summary, we find the following:
The Huawei operating company is 100% owned by a holding company, which is in turn approximately 1% owned by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and 99% owned by an entity called a “trade union committee” for the holding company.
We know nothing about the internal governance procedures of the trade union committee. We do not know who the committee members or other trade union leaders are, or how they are selected.
Trade union members have no right to assets held by a trade union.
What have been called “employee shares” in “Huawei” are in fact at most contractual
interests in a profit-sharing scheme.
Given the public nature of trade unions in China, if the ownership stake of the trade union
committee is genuine, and if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions
generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned.
Regardless of who, in a practical sense, owns and controls Huawei, it is clear that the
employees do not.
Did you read Huawei's response to that?
The paper itself wasn't able to categorically state anything without qualify the affirmations beforehand.
There simply isn't enough publicly available documentation to draw that kind of certainty.
I take note that instead of providing a retort to my point you fell back on something that has been dealt with by me at least three times in replies to you.
Sorry, but if Huawei isn't transparent with it's "publicly available documentation", and if its response doesn't address the issue of employee ownership, then there is, as you would say, no evidence that Huawei is not a state supported company.
It's a darn shame Apple gradually priced itself out of the global smartphone market. There's no choice but to lower prices on iPhones because there aren't any features Apple could add to the iPhone to attract consumers. Apple really had a good iPhone business for so many years but I'm guessing those days are over. Apple certainly wasn't able to put any Chinese smartphone manufacturer out of business and each year those Chinese smartphone vendors got stronger by adding more features and building higher-quality smartphones. It seems as though Apple has lost its iPhone business in China with no hope of gaining those customers back. Every year, Apple loses more and more market share percentage. I wonder if that will ever stop. Android, as a whole, is just killing Apple in terms of market share percentage and there's nothing Apple can do about it except to find some alternate revenue streams.
Competitors have simply stepped ahead of Apple. It isn't that Apple can't compete. More that it simply chose notto and thought users would buy into the deal anyway. Call it arrogance, complacency or whatever you prefer but although Apple dropped the 'S' from the name, it still has an 'S' cycle. To make matters far, far worse, the that cycle sits within a yearly refresh cycle.
With regards to the competition, Apple has become a technological sloth. By the time Apple gets around to releasing a competitive product (assuming it is competitive) later this year, two years will have passed since the iPhone X.
To contrast that with Huawei, in the same period they released a flagship everyquarter. ....
The current strategy of offering lower priced phones which are old, really isn't going to keep users interested while they see all the advances coming to Android at attractive price points.
That's my master plan anyway. :-)
While I generally agree with you about Huawei, I disagree on this. Huawei, while not a newbie, simply doesn't have the reputation to protect. if they put out a phone with a defect, they can either shrug or fix it and move on. If Apple makes even the slightest of errors, it is international news and they are punished in every way shape or form -- even on a rumor that there might be a defect. ... So, Apple has to be cautious rather that constantly pushing the envelope as a Huawei can do.
And for using older to products to provide lower cost products: I think that is necessary because a big part of Apple's cost is not just the hardware (as it is for Huawei & Samsung) but Apple's software and ecosystem that others don't need to pay for -- so exploiting older designs and manufacturing systems helps them put out a quality, price competitive product. Plus, as I mentioned, Apple has to protect their reputation because they are held to a higher standard - so selling proven older phones is less risky than one designed to be cheap.
I mostly agree. The problem is that Apple is a slow mover in one the most dynamic consumer markets out there.
There's no problem in that as long as there are sales (although the 'markets' want growth in addition to sales). However, when sales flatten for so long and then contract you have two options: Do nothing (or virtually nothing) and hope the situation corrects itself (we all remember the rumoured 'supercycle') or you make changes to adapt to a new reality (saturation among others).
I think the second option is the only way forward now, given how much the smartphone world has changed/advanced.
I follow what you say on the difficulties and risks though.
The changes are already here and started with the 2017 refresh (which I applauded). First with the simple, low risk, changes. Last year they should have taken that a step further IMO but they chose to play safe and try to squeeze more money out of people by increasing prices and shipping a simply iterative upgrade with the usual 'storage upsell' to annoy users.
Two quarters down the road, it has backfired in a big way.
Other factors have come into play such as the 5G misstep and the 'batterygate' problems which have accentuated the underlying issues.
Rumours say the Kirin 985 will have the Balong 5000 on the SoC. If that is true, it means that every model that uses it (it will be announced in around four months) will automatically and natively be a 5G phone. That is going to be a huge amount of phones.
Others, in the mid range, will ship with the Kirin 980 + Balong 5000, which will be another huge amount of phones.
I would introduce an SE style iPhone around MWC2020 with an A12, hole punch LCD, rear mounted TouchID (shock!), gradient finish and an attractive price.
Something with a fresh design and plenty of power while not being at the very top end if the line and released out of the traditional iPhone refresh window.
You surely must be aware that Apple's iPhone generated more revenue, and at a much higher rate of profit, than Huawei's entire business did, for the quarter. Given that Huawei is state supported, they can live with very low rates of profit. In the West, that wouldn't be possible under stockholder ownership.
For you ASP's don't matter, but they do for corporations. Sooner than later, the Android OS Device Market will be saturated, and in decline. Do you really think that now is the time for Apple to reverse years of profitability to chase marketshare, when their iPhone user base keeps expanding.
For the record, I purchased a refurbished iPhone 8 for my brother yesterday for $349.00. I don't know if it was refurbished by Apple, or some third party, but I do know that that is a very good value. It is, interestingly enough, not much larger than the SE, and would certainly fulfill that position if and until Apple does create a replacement to the SE.
I am not concerned by Huawei's frequent product releases, nor Apple's lack of 5G for this fall. All they are doing is training customers to expect frequent new models, and price drops as they are replaced. You actually explained that to me as your "value" strategy.
Two, different, markets. Apple is an entire ecosystem including the iPhone, while Android OS device makers compete, for the most part, with each other based on hardware and UI. As the market saturates, there will be a race to the bottom until the device makers consolidate. That could begin, if it hasn't already, at any time.
Congratulations on the iPhone 8. That is a great price.
The main Android market is already saturated and has been for a couple of years now.
We are seeing convergence as a result but is some of the smaller non-niche players who are feeling the pinch. That said, much more effort is being put into other 'less developed' markets which have great potential. Obviously, without a change in business model, Apple will find it difficult to expand into those markets but has plenty of room to claim some of that 80% Android share.
Huawei isn't government funded. They've made that clear.
As for profit, they make more than enough to finance huge R&D budgets become more vertically integrated by the day and have huge plans for every rung on the tech ladder going forward. Some of those plans might seem scary to you:
I've posted a few times about Huawei's so called "employee ownership", and unless and until Huawei becomes more transparent in its financials, the West cannot assume that they are anything other than a state supported company.
Here's a response from a commenter of wrt the report and Huawei's response;
"Don: I think you know why Huawei objects so strongly to this English-language report, for which I congratulate you and Christopher. Huawei is fighting on multiple fronts what it views as a life-and-death struggle for markets in OECD countries where there seems to emerging a (excuse the expression) “united front” to keep Huawei out. The basis for this determination is the perceived domination of Huawei and every other PRC company by the Communist Party and their alignment with China’s geostrategic aims. Easily accessible commentary in English by knowledgeable foreign China experts which undermines the false narrative that Huawei is simply like every other private business corporation owned by its shareholders may defeat or hinder Huawei’s global ambition."
'perceived'. What a surprise.
Experts differ. Huawei could clear this up with transparency of their financials. They didn't do that.
Huawei, much to your chagrin is a private company. As such it provides audited accounts and complies with Chinese law.
It has made statements on everything that you have protested about but if you still don't believe them, it's time to let go.
As for connections with the Chinese government, chew on this:
Tim Cook has had many private one-on-ones with Donald Trump. It is said that he received promises from the president that Apple would not be affected by tariff changes in the dispute with China. Tariffs that directly impact Huawei's business.
So, on the one hand Apple is being favoured to the tune of millions while Huawei is being impacted to the tune of millions.
If this were the other way around and it was the CEO of Huawei having one-on-ones with the president of China to lobby for protection of its business, you would be howling about it.
Chinese Law; isn't that controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, aka, the Chinese Government?
Of course, you won't read it, because of your obvious bias.
Here's the summary;
In summary, we find the following:
The Huawei operating company is 100% owned by a holding company, which is in turn approximately 1% owned by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and 99% owned by an entity called a “trade union committee” for the holding company.
We know nothing about the internal governance procedures of the trade union committee. We do not know who the committee members or other trade union leaders are, or how they are selected.
Trade union members have no right to assets held by a trade union.
What have been called “employee shares” in “Huawei” are in fact at most contractual
interests in a profit-sharing scheme.
Given the public nature of trade unions in China, if the ownership stake of the trade union
committee is genuine, and if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions
generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned.
Regardless of who, in a practical sense, owns and controls Huawei, it is clear that the
employees do not.
Did you read Huawei's response to that?
The paper itself wasn't able to categorically state anything without qualify the affirmations beforehand.
There simply isn't enough publicly available documentation to draw that kind of certainty.
I take note that instead of providing a retort to my point you fell back on something that has been dealt with by me at least three times in replies to you.
Sorry, but if Huawei isn't transparent with it's "publicly available documentation", and if its response doesn't address the issue of employee ownership, then there is, as you would say, no evidence that Huawei is not a state supported company.
It's a private company. One of the advantages is that it doesn't have to be as transparent as you want it to be. No private company does. This isn't a Huawei only thing.
I have no idea where you are going with 'profits'. As long as they exist, there is no problem. What counts are products.
Consumers aren't interested in a company's financials. In fact that can end up being counterproductive if the company is awash with profits through high pricing but not delivering enough advances when compared to cheaper competition. Competition that can often not only be 'good enough' but noticeably ahead of Apple.
Paying more, just to fill Apple's coffers, is not my idea of a competitive product offer. If more people baulk at Apple's iPhone pricing (as they seem to be doing), Apple's business will be negatively affected. That's what's happening now.
BTW, I see you are still avoiding giving a response to my observation on TC meeting DT to ensure business protection for Apple.
It's a darn shame Apple gradually priced itself out of the global smartphone market. There's no choice but to lower prices on iPhones because there aren't any features Apple could add to the iPhone to attract consumers. Apple really had a good iPhone business for so many years but I'm guessing those days are over. Apple certainly wasn't able to put any Chinese smartphone manufacturer out of business and each year those Chinese smartphone vendors got stronger by adding more features and building higher-quality smartphones. It seems as though Apple has lost its iPhone business in China with no hope of gaining those customers back. Every year, Apple loses more and more market share percentage. I wonder if that will ever stop. Android, as a whole, is just killing Apple in terms of market share percentage and there's nothing Apple can do about it except to find some alternate revenue streams.
Competitors have simply stepped ahead of Apple. It isn't that Apple can't compete. More that it simply chose notto and thought users would buy into the deal anyway. Call it arrogance, complacency or whatever you prefer but although Apple dropped the 'S' from the name, it still has an 'S' cycle. To make matters far, far worse, the that cycle sits within a yearly refresh cycle.
With regards to the competition, Apple has become a technological sloth. By the time Apple gets around to releasing a competitive product (assuming it is competitive) later this year, two years will have passed since the iPhone X.
To contrast that with Huawei, in the same period they released a flagship everyquarter. ....
The current strategy of offering lower priced phones which are old, really isn't going to keep users interested while they see all the advances coming to Android at attractive price points.
That's my master plan anyway. :-)
While I generally agree with you about Huawei, I disagree on this. Huawei, while not a newbie, simply doesn't have the reputation to protect. if they put out a phone with a defect, they can either shrug or fix it and move on. If Apple makes even the slightest of errors, it is international news and they are punished in every way shape or form -- even on a rumor that there might be a defect. ... So, Apple has to be cautious rather that constantly pushing the envelope as a Huawei can do.
And for using older to products to provide lower cost products: I think that is necessary because a big part of Apple's cost is not just the hardware (as it is for Huawei & Samsung) but Apple's software and ecosystem that others don't need to pay for -- so exploiting older designs and manufacturing systems helps them put out a quality, price competitive product. Plus, as I mentioned, Apple has to protect their reputation because they are held to a higher standard - so selling proven older phones is less risky than one designed to be cheap.
I mostly agree. The problem is that Apple is a slow mover in one the most dynamic consumer markets out there.
There's no problem in that as long as there are sales (although the 'markets' want growth in addition to sales). However, when sales flatten for so long and then contract you have two options: Do nothing (or virtually nothing) and hope the situation corrects itself (we all remember the rumoured 'supercycle') or you make changes to adapt to a new reality (saturation among others).
I think the second option is the only way forward now, given how much the smartphone world has changed/advanced.
I follow what you say on the difficulties and risks though.
The changes are already here and started with the 2017 refresh (which I applauded). First with the simple, low risk, changes. Last year they should have taken that a step further IMO but they chose to play safe and try to squeeze more money out of people by increasing prices and shipping a simply iterative upgrade with the usual 'storage upsell' to annoy users.
Two quarters down the road, it has backfired in a big way.
Other factors have come into play such as the 5G misstep and the 'batterygate' problems which have accentuated the underlying issues.
Rumours say the Kirin 985 will have the Balong 5000 on the SoC. If that is true, it means that every model that uses it (it will be announced in around four months) will automatically and natively be a 5G phone. That is going to be a huge amount of phones.
Others, in the mid range, will ship with the Kirin 980 + Balong 5000, which will be another huge amount of phones.
I would introduce an SE style iPhone around MWC2020 with an A12, hole punch LCD, rear mounted TouchID (shock!), gradient finish and an attractive price.
Something with a fresh design and plenty of power while not being at the very top end if the line and released out of the traditional iPhone refresh window.
You surely must be aware that Apple's iPhone generated more revenue, and at a much higher rate of profit, than Huawei's entire business did, for the quarter. Given that Huawei is state supported, they can live with very low rates of profit. In the West, that wouldn't be possible under stockholder ownership.
For you ASP's don't matter, but they do for corporations. Sooner than later, the Android OS Device Market will be saturated, and in decline. Do you really think that now is the time for Apple to reverse years of profitability to chase marketshare, when their iPhone user base keeps expanding.
For the record, I purchased a refurbished iPhone 8 for my brother yesterday for $349.00. I don't know if it was refurbished by Apple, or some third party, but I do know that that is a very good value. It is, interestingly enough, not much larger than the SE, and would certainly fulfill that position if and until Apple does create a replacement to the SE.
I am not concerned by Huawei's frequent product releases, nor Apple's lack of 5G for this fall. All they are doing is training customers to expect frequent new models, and price drops as they are replaced. You actually explained that to me as your "value" strategy.
Two, different, markets. Apple is an entire ecosystem including the iPhone, while Android OS device makers compete, for the most part, with each other based on hardware and UI. As the market saturates, there will be a race to the bottom until the device makers consolidate. That could begin, if it hasn't already, at any time.
Congratulations on the iPhone 8. That is a great price.
The main Android market is already saturated and has been for a couple of years now.
We are seeing convergence as a result but is some of the smaller non-niche players who are feeling the pinch. That said, much more effort is being put into other 'less developed' markets which have great potential. Obviously, without a change in business model, Apple will find it difficult to expand into those markets but has plenty of room to claim some of that 80% Android share.
Huawei isn't government funded. They've made that clear.
As for profit, they make more than enough to finance huge R&D budgets become more vertically integrated by the day and have huge plans for every rung on the tech ladder going forward. Some of those plans might seem scary to you:
I've posted a few times about Huawei's so called "employee ownership", and unless and until Huawei becomes more transparent in its financials, the West cannot assume that they are anything other than a state supported company.
Here's a response from a commenter of wrt the report and Huawei's response;
"Don: I think you know why Huawei objects so strongly to this English-language report, for which I congratulate you and Christopher. Huawei is fighting on multiple fronts what it views as a life-and-death struggle for markets in OECD countries where there seems to emerging a (excuse the expression) “united front” to keep Huawei out. The basis for this determination is the perceived domination of Huawei and every other PRC company by the Communist Party and their alignment with China’s geostrategic aims. Easily accessible commentary in English by knowledgeable foreign China experts which undermines the false narrative that Huawei is simply like every other private business corporation owned by its shareholders may defeat or hinder Huawei’s global ambition."
'perceived'. What a surprise.
Experts differ. Huawei could clear this up with transparency of their financials. They didn't do that.
Huawei, much to your chagrin is a private company. As such it provides audited accounts and complies with Chinese law.
It has made statements on everything that you have protested about but if you still don't believe them, it's time to let go.
As for connections with the Chinese government, chew on this:
Tim Cook has had many private one-on-ones with Donald Trump. It is said that he received promises from the president that Apple would not be affected by tariff changes in the dispute with China. Tariffs that directly impact Huawei's business.
So, on the one hand Apple is being favoured to the tune of millions while Huawei is being impacted to the tune of millions.
If this were the other way around and it was the CEO of Huawei having one-on-ones with the president of China to lobby for protection of its business, you would be howling about it.
Chinese Law; isn't that controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, aka, the Chinese Government?
Of course, you won't read it, because of your obvious bias.
Here's the summary;
In summary, we find the following:
The Huawei operating company is 100% owned by a holding company, which is in turn approximately 1% owned by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and 99% owned by an entity called a “trade union committee” for the holding company.
We know nothing about the internal governance procedures of the trade union committee. We do not know who the committee members or other trade union leaders are, or how they are selected.
Trade union members have no right to assets held by a trade union.
What have been called “employee shares” in “Huawei” are in fact at most contractual
interests in a profit-sharing scheme.
Given the public nature of trade unions in China, if the ownership stake of the trade union
committee is genuine, and if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions
generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned.
Regardless of who, in a practical sense, owns and controls Huawei, it is clear that the
employees do not.
Did you read Huawei's response to that?
The paper itself wasn't able to categorically state anything without qualify the affirmations beforehand.
There simply isn't enough publicly available documentation to draw that kind of certainty.
I take note that instead of providing a retort to my point you fell back on something that has been dealt with by me at least three times in replies to you.
Sorry, but if Huawei isn't transparent with it's "publicly available documentation", and if its response doesn't address the issue of employee ownership, then there is, as you would say, no evidence that Huawei is not a state supported company.
It's a private company. One of the advantages is that it doesn't have to be as transparent as you want it to be. No private company does. This isn't a Huawei only thing.
I have no idea where you are going with 'profits'. As long as they exist, there is no problem. What counts are products.
Consumers aren't interested in a company's financials. In fact that can end up being counterproductive if the company is awash with profits through high pricing but not delivering enough advances when compared to cheaper competition. Competition that can often not only be 'good enough' but noticeably ahead of Apple.
Paying more, just to fill Apple's coffers, is not my idea of a competitive product offer. If more people baulk at Apple's iPhone pricing (as they seem to be doing), Apple's business will be negatively affected. That's what's happening now.
BTW, I see you are still avoiding giving a response to my observation on TC meeting DT to ensure business protection for Apple.
TC meeting DT is just traditional corporate lobbying and legal in the U.S. More to the point, TC has been a fountain of advice wrt the current trade negotiations. Of course TC will be against Tariffs.
DT will do what he wants, and for a fact, isn't protecting Apple from Huawei in any sense. Huawei's problem is directly tied to its roots in China and the CCP.
Oh, and that little Prague conference, while non-binding, looks to put substantial constraints on Huawei's 5G buildouts in Europe, as there should be.
Kudos to the Czechs and Australia for forcing this, and all Five Eyes were present.
The Justice Department's intervention in the Qualcomm FTC case is much more unfavorable to Huawei;
"The Justice Department’s intervention
Reuters reports that the Justice Department is concerned about what might happen should the FTC win the case. Anything which hurt Qualcomm too deeply could threaten the USA’s place in the future of 5G.
The Justice Department’s filing asked Judge Lucy Koh of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California to hold a hearing on any possible remedies if she finds Qualcomm liable for antitrust violations and argued that “a remedy should work as little injury as possible to other public policies,” according to the filing.
The Justice Department said that any penalties Judge Koh might impose should not hamper the market for 5G, the next generation of mobile networks that are expected to be up to 100 times faster than current networks. The United States, China and Korea will roll out those networks this year and next, and Qualcomm makes so-called modem chips that allow smart phones and other devices to connect to those networks.
It said that a penalty designed to punish anti-competitive behavior could, ironically, reduce competition in the 5G market.
“There is a plausible prospect that an overly broad remedy in this case could reduce competition and innovation in markets for 5G technology and downstream applications that rely on that technology,” the Justice Department wrote. “Such an outcome could exceed the appropriate scope of an equitable antitrust remedy. Moreover, it has the distinct potential to harm rather than help competition.”
It's a darn shame Apple gradually priced itself out of the global smartphone market. There's no choice but to lower prices on iPhones because there aren't any features Apple could add to the iPhone to attract consumers. Apple really had a good iPhone business for so many years but I'm guessing those days are over. Apple certainly wasn't able to put any Chinese smartphone manufacturer out of business and each year those Chinese smartphone vendors got stronger by adding more features and building higher-quality smartphones. It seems as though Apple has lost its iPhone business in China with no hope of gaining those customers back. Every year, Apple loses more and more market share percentage. I wonder if that will ever stop. Android, as a whole, is just killing Apple in terms of market share percentage and there's nothing Apple can do about it except to find some alternate revenue streams.
Competitors have simply stepped ahead of Apple. It isn't that Apple can't compete. More that it simply chose notto and thought users would buy into the deal anyway. Call it arrogance, complacency or whatever you prefer but although Apple dropped the 'S' from the name, it still has an 'S' cycle. To make matters far, far worse, the that cycle sits within a yearly refresh cycle.
With regards to the competition, Apple has become a technological sloth. By the time Apple gets around to releasing a competitive product (assuming it is competitive) later this year, two years will have passed since the iPhone X.
To contrast that with Huawei, in the same period they released a flagship everyquarter. ....
The current strategy of offering lower priced phones which are old, really isn't going to keep users interested while they see all the advances coming to Android at attractive price points.
That's my master plan anyway. :-)
While I generally agree with you about Huawei, I disagree on this. Huawei, while not a newbie, simply doesn't have the reputation to protect. if they put out a phone with a defect, they can either shrug or fix it and move on. If Apple makes even the slightest of errors, it is international news and they are punished in every way shape or form -- even on a rumor that there might be a defect. ... So, Apple has to be cautious rather that constantly pushing the envelope as a Huawei can do.
And for using older to products to provide lower cost products: I think that is necessary because a big part of Apple's cost is not just the hardware (as it is for Huawei & Samsung) but Apple's software and ecosystem that others don't need to pay for -- so exploiting older designs and manufacturing systems helps them put out a quality, price competitive product. Plus, as I mentioned, Apple has to protect their reputation because they are held to a higher standard - so selling proven older phones is less risky than one designed to be cheap.
I mostly agree. The problem is that Apple is a slow mover in one the most dynamic consumer markets out there.
There's no problem in that as long as there are sales (although the 'markets' want growth in addition to sales). However, when sales flatten for so long and then contract you have two options: Do nothing (or virtually nothing) and hope the situation corrects itself (we all remember the rumoured 'supercycle') or you make changes to adapt to a new reality (saturation among others).
I think the second option is the only way forward now, given how much the smartphone world has changed/advanced.
I follow what you say on the difficulties and risks though.
The changes are already here and started with the 2017 refresh (which I applauded). First with the simple, low risk, changes. Last year they should have taken that a step further IMO but they chose to play safe and try to squeeze more money out of people by increasing prices and shipping a simply iterative upgrade with the usual 'storage upsell' to annoy users.
Two quarters down the road, it has backfired in a big way.
Other factors have come into play such as the 5G misstep and the 'batterygate' problems which have accentuated the underlying issues.
Rumours say the Kirin 985 will have the Balong 5000 on the SoC. If that is true, it means that every model that uses it (it will be announced in around four months) will automatically and natively be a 5G phone. That is going to be a huge amount of phones.
Others, in the mid range, will ship with the Kirin 980 + Balong 5000, which will be another huge amount of phones.
I would introduce an SE style iPhone around MWC2020 with an A12, hole punch LCD, rear mounted TouchID (shock!), gradient finish and an attractive price.
Something with a fresh design and plenty of power while not being at the very top end if the line and released out of the traditional iPhone refresh window.
You surely must be aware that Apple's iPhone generated more revenue, and at a much higher rate of profit, than Huawei's entire business did, for the quarter. Given that Huawei is state supported, they can live with very low rates of profit. In the West, that wouldn't be possible under stockholder ownership.
For you ASP's don't matter, but they do for corporations. Sooner than later, the Android OS Device Market will be saturated, and in decline. Do you really think that now is the time for Apple to reverse years of profitability to chase marketshare, when their iPhone user base keeps expanding.
For the record, I purchased a refurbished iPhone 8 for my brother yesterday for $349.00. I don't know if it was refurbished by Apple, or some third party, but I do know that that is a very good value. It is, interestingly enough, not much larger than the SE, and would certainly fulfill that position if and until Apple does create a replacement to the SE.
I am not concerned by Huawei's frequent product releases, nor Apple's lack of 5G for this fall. All they are doing is training customers to expect frequent new models, and price drops as they are replaced. You actually explained that to me as your "value" strategy.
Two, different, markets. Apple is an entire ecosystem including the iPhone, while Android OS device makers compete, for the most part, with each other based on hardware and UI. As the market saturates, there will be a race to the bottom until the device makers consolidate. That could begin, if it hasn't already, at any time.
Congratulations on the iPhone 8. That is a great price.
The main Android market is already saturated and has been for a couple of years now.
We are seeing convergence as a result but is some of the smaller non-niche players who are feeling the pinch. That said, much more effort is being put into other 'less developed' markets which have great potential. Obviously, without a change in business model, Apple will find it difficult to expand into those markets but has plenty of room to claim some of that 80% Android share.
Huawei isn't government funded. They've made that clear.
As for profit, they make more than enough to finance huge R&D budgets become more vertically integrated by the day and have huge plans for every rung on the tech ladder going forward. Some of those plans might seem scary to you:
I've posted a few times about Huawei's so called "employee ownership", and unless and until Huawei becomes more transparent in its financials, the West cannot assume that they are anything other than a state supported company.
Here's a response from a commenter of wrt the report and Huawei's response;
"Don: I think you know why Huawei objects so strongly to this English-language report, for which I congratulate you and Christopher. Huawei is fighting on multiple fronts what it views as a life-and-death struggle for markets in OECD countries where there seems to emerging a (excuse the expression) “united front” to keep Huawei out. The basis for this determination is the perceived domination of Huawei and every other PRC company by the Communist Party and their alignment with China’s geostrategic aims. Easily accessible commentary in English by knowledgeable foreign China experts which undermines the false narrative that Huawei is simply like every other private business corporation owned by its shareholders may defeat or hinder Huawei’s global ambition."
'perceived'. What a surprise.
Experts differ. Huawei could clear this up with transparency of their financials. They didn't do that.
Huawei, much to your chagrin is a private company. As such it provides audited accounts and complies with Chinese law.
It has made statements on everything that you have protested about but if you still don't believe them, it's time to let go.
As for connections with the Chinese government, chew on this:
Tim Cook has had many private one-on-ones with Donald Trump. It is said that he received promises from the president that Apple would not be affected by tariff changes in the dispute with China. Tariffs that directly impact Huawei's business.
So, on the one hand Apple is being favoured to the tune of millions while Huawei is being impacted to the tune of millions.
If this were the other way around and it was the CEO of Huawei having one-on-ones with the president of China to lobby for protection of its business, you would be howling about it.
Chinese Law; isn't that controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, aka, the Chinese Government?
Of course, you won't read it, because of your obvious bias.
Here's the summary;
In summary, we find the following:
The Huawei operating company is 100% owned by a holding company, which is in turn approximately 1% owned by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and 99% owned by an entity called a “trade union committee” for the holding company.
We know nothing about the internal governance procedures of the trade union committee. We do not know who the committee members or other trade union leaders are, or how they are selected.
Trade union members have no right to assets held by a trade union.
What have been called “employee shares” in “Huawei” are in fact at most contractual
interests in a profit-sharing scheme.
Given the public nature of trade unions in China, if the ownership stake of the trade union
committee is genuine, and if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions
generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned.
Regardless of who, in a practical sense, owns and controls Huawei, it is clear that the
employees do not.
Did you read Huawei's response to that?
The paper itself wasn't able to categorically state anything without qualify the affirmations beforehand.
There simply isn't enough publicly available documentation to draw that kind of certainty.
I take note that instead of providing a retort to my point you fell back on something that has been dealt with by me at least three times in replies to you.
Sorry, but if Huawei isn't transparent with it's "publicly available documentation", and if its response doesn't address the issue of employee ownership, then there is, as you would say, no evidence that Huawei is not a state supported company.
It's a private company. One of the advantages is that it doesn't have to be as transparent as you want it to be. No private company does. This isn't a Huawei only thing.
I have no idea where you are going with 'profits'. As long as they exist, there is no problem. What counts are products.
Consumers aren't interested in a company's financials. In fact that can end up being counterproductive if the company is awash with profits through high pricing but not delivering enough advances when compared to cheaper competition. Competition that can often not only be 'good enough' but noticeably ahead of Apple.
Paying more, just to fill Apple's coffers, is not my idea of a competitive product offer. If more people baulk at Apple's iPhone pricing (as they seem to be doing), Apple's business will be negatively affected. That's what's happening now.
BTW, I see you are still avoiding giving a response to my observation on TC meeting DT to ensure business protection for Apple.
TC meeting DT is just traditional corporate lobbying and legal in the U.S. More to the point, TC has been a fountain of advice wrt the current trade negotiations. Of course TC will be against Tariffs.
DT will do what he wants, and for a fact, isn't protecting Apple from Huawei in any sense. Huawei's problem is directly tied to its roots in China and the CCP.
Oh, and that little Prague conference, while non-binding, looks to put substantial constraints on Huawei's 5G buildouts in Europe, as there should be.
Kudos to the Czechs and Australia for forcing this, and all Five Eyes were present.
The Justice Department's intervention in the Qualcomm FTC case is much more unfavorable to Huawei;
"The Justice Department’s intervention
Reuters reports that the Justice Department is concerned about what might happen should the FTC win the case. Anything which hurt Qualcomm too deeply could threaten the USA’s place in the future of 5G.
The Justice Department’s filing asked Judge Lucy Koh of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California to hold a hearing on any possible remedies if she finds Qualcomm liable for antitrust violations and argued that “a remedy should work as little injury as possible to other public policies,” according to the filing.
The Justice Department said that any penalties Judge Koh might impose should not hamper the market for 5G, the next generation of mobile networks that are expected to be up to 100 times faster than current networks. The United States, China and Korea will roll out those networks this year and next, and Qualcomm makes so-called modem chips that allow smart phones and other devices to connect to those networks.
It said that a penalty designed to punish anti-competitive behavior could, ironically, reduce competition in the 5G market.
“There is a plausible prospect that an overly broad remedy in this case could reduce competition and innovation in markets for 5G technology and downstream applications that rely on that technology,” the Justice Department wrote. “Such an outcome could exceed the appropriate scope of an equitable antitrust remedy. Moreover, it has the distinct potential to harm rather than help competition.”
Getting a private one-on-one audience with the president of the United States is not 'traditional lobbying'. It creates distrust among industry peers. Not unlike when, in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum, Theresa May invited Nissan to talks in Downing Street.
TC has definitely not been a fountain of advice for trade negotiations. First, you were not privy to the talks - no one was. They were private. Except for generic advice TC cannot offer on trade negotiation. TC himself is not privy to the ongoing multilateral complexities of trade negotiations which can twist and turn at any moment. Unless you are participating or receiving regular briefs, you have little to offer.
Being legal is irrelevant. My point was that the same situation happening on the other side (which would also be legal) would have you interpreting Chinese government tie ins with Huawei and launching all your conspiracy theory madness.
TC is against tariffs that affect his business interests. I don't know that if he were president that would change. Don't confuse TC speaking as CEO of Apple with TC speaking as the president. His ideas and approach may be radically different.
DT is most definitely protecting Apple from Huawei. Pressuring AT&T into backing out of a national handset distribution deal 'kept the wolf at bay' on Apple's home turf. Seeing as no Huawei phones have been banned in the 17 months since that move, it was clearly a protectionist move. Yes, protectionism.
Something you tried to argue was not the case because the US has no 5G options. However, now you are highlighting a possible conflict of interest in the QC case on the grounds that a harsh ruling may be detrimental to 5G competition! What's it to be?
What is happening here is that the US is worried about a harsh ruling affecting its ability to compete with foreign 5G options. That is something entirely different. There is plenty of competition in 5G even without QC. Protectionism again. Reuters' reading of the situation (in the quotes above) is spot on.
It's a darn shame Apple gradually priced itself out of the global smartphone market. There's no choice but to lower prices on iPhones because there aren't any features Apple could add to the iPhone to attract consumers. Apple really had a good iPhone business for so many years but I'm guessing those days are over. Apple certainly wasn't able to put any Chinese smartphone manufacturer out of business and each year those Chinese smartphone vendors got stronger by adding more features and building higher-quality smartphones. It seems as though Apple has lost its iPhone business in China with no hope of gaining those customers back. Every year, Apple loses more and more market share percentage. I wonder if that will ever stop. Android, as a whole, is just killing Apple in terms of market share percentage and there's nothing Apple can do about it except to find some alternate revenue streams.
Competitors have simply stepped ahead of Apple. It isn't that Apple can't compete. More that it simply chose notto and thought users would buy into the deal anyway. Call it arrogance, complacency or whatever you prefer but although Apple dropped the 'S' from the name, it still has an 'S' cycle. To make matters far, far worse, the that cycle sits within a yearly refresh cycle.
With regards to the competition, Apple has become a technological sloth. By the time Apple gets around to releasing a competitive product (assuming it is competitive) later this year, two years will have passed since the iPhone X.
To contrast that with Huawei, in the same period they released a flagship everyquarter. ....
The current strategy of offering lower priced phones which are old, really isn't going to keep users interested while they see all the advances coming to Android at attractive price points.
That's my master plan anyway. :-)
While I generally agree with you about Huawei, I disagree on this. Huawei, while not a newbie, simply doesn't have the reputation to protect. if they put out a phone with a defect, they can either shrug or fix it and move on. If Apple makes even the slightest of errors, it is international news and they are punished in every way shape or form -- even on a rumor that there might be a defect. ... So, Apple has to be cautious rather that constantly pushing the envelope as a Huawei can do.
And for using older to products to provide lower cost products: I think that is necessary because a big part of Apple's cost is not just the hardware (as it is for Huawei & Samsung) but Apple's software and ecosystem that others don't need to pay for -- so exploiting older designs and manufacturing systems helps them put out a quality, price competitive product. Plus, as I mentioned, Apple has to protect their reputation because they are held to a higher standard - so selling proven older phones is less risky than one designed to be cheap.
I mostly agree. The problem is that Apple is a slow mover in one the most dynamic consumer markets out there.
There's no problem in that as long as there are sales (although the 'markets' want growth in addition to sales). However, when sales flatten for so long and then contract you have two options: Do nothing (or virtually nothing) and hope the situation corrects itself (we all remember the rumoured 'supercycle') or you make changes to adapt to a new reality (saturation among others).
I think the second option is the only way forward now, given how much the smartphone world has changed/advanced.
I follow what you say on the difficulties and risks though.
The changes are already here and started with the 2017 refresh (which I applauded). First with the simple, low risk, changes. Last year they should have taken that a step further IMO but they chose to play safe and try to squeeze more money out of people by increasing prices and shipping a simply iterative upgrade with the usual 'storage upsell' to annoy users.
Two quarters down the road, it has backfired in a big way.
Other factors have come into play such as the 5G misstep and the 'batterygate' problems which have accentuated the underlying issues.
Rumours say the Kirin 985 will have the Balong 5000 on the SoC. If that is true, it means that every model that uses it (it will be announced in around four months) will automatically and natively be a 5G phone. That is going to be a huge amount of phones.
Others, in the mid range, will ship with the Kirin 980 + Balong 5000, which will be another huge amount of phones.
I would introduce an SE style iPhone around MWC2020 with an A12, hole punch LCD, rear mounted TouchID (shock!), gradient finish and an attractive price.
Something with a fresh design and plenty of power while not being at the very top end if the line and released out of the traditional iPhone refresh window.
You surely must be aware that Apple's iPhone generated more revenue, and at a much higher rate of profit, than Huawei's entire business did, for the quarter. Given that Huawei is state supported, they can live with very low rates of profit. In the West, that wouldn't be possible under stockholder ownership.
For you ASP's don't matter, but they do for corporations. Sooner than later, the Android OS Device Market will be saturated, and in decline. Do you really think that now is the time for Apple to reverse years of profitability to chase marketshare, when their iPhone user base keeps expanding.
For the record, I purchased a refurbished iPhone 8 for my brother yesterday for $349.00. I don't know if it was refurbished by Apple, or some third party, but I do know that that is a very good value. It is, interestingly enough, not much larger than the SE, and would certainly fulfill that position if and until Apple does create a replacement to the SE.
I am not concerned by Huawei's frequent product releases, nor Apple's lack of 5G for this fall. All they are doing is training customers to expect frequent new models, and price drops as they are replaced. You actually explained that to me as your "value" strategy.
Two, different, markets. Apple is an entire ecosystem including the iPhone, while Android OS device makers compete, for the most part, with each other based on hardware and UI. As the market saturates, there will be a race to the bottom until the device makers consolidate. That could begin, if it hasn't already, at any time.
Congratulations on the iPhone 8. That is a great price.
The main Android market is already saturated and has been for a couple of years now.
We are seeing convergence as a result but is some of the smaller non-niche players who are feeling the pinch. That said, much more effort is being put into other 'less developed' markets which have great potential. Obviously, without a change in business model, Apple will find it difficult to expand into those markets but has plenty of room to claim some of that 80% Android share.
Huawei isn't government funded. They've made that clear.
As for profit, they make more than enough to finance huge R&D budgets become more vertically integrated by the day and have huge plans for every rung on the tech ladder going forward. Some of those plans might seem scary to you:
I've posted a few times about Huawei's so called "employee ownership", and unless and until Huawei becomes more transparent in its financials, the West cannot assume that they are anything other than a state supported company.
Here's a response from a commenter of wrt the report and Huawei's response;
"Don: I think you know why Huawei objects so strongly to this English-language report, for which I congratulate you and Christopher. Huawei is fighting on multiple fronts what it views as a life-and-death struggle for markets in OECD countries where there seems to emerging a (excuse the expression) “united front” to keep Huawei out. The basis for this determination is the perceived domination of Huawei and every other PRC company by the Communist Party and their alignment with China’s geostrategic aims. Easily accessible commentary in English by knowledgeable foreign China experts which undermines the false narrative that Huawei is simply like every other private business corporation owned by its shareholders may defeat or hinder Huawei’s global ambition."
'perceived'. What a surprise.
Experts differ. Huawei could clear this up with transparency of their financials. They didn't do that.
Huawei, much to your chagrin is a private company. As such it provides audited accounts and complies with Chinese law.
It has made statements on everything that you have protested about but if you still don't believe them, it's time to let go.
As for connections with the Chinese government, chew on this:
Tim Cook has had many private one-on-ones with Donald Trump. It is said that he received promises from the president that Apple would not be affected by tariff changes in the dispute with China. Tariffs that directly impact Huawei's business.
So, on the one hand Apple is being favoured to the tune of millions while Huawei is being impacted to the tune of millions.
If this were the other way around and it was the CEO of Huawei having one-on-ones with the president of China to lobby for protection of its business, you would be howling about it.
Chinese Law; isn't that controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, aka, the Chinese Government?
Of course, you won't read it, because of your obvious bias.
Here's the summary;
In summary, we find the following:
The Huawei operating company is 100% owned by a holding company, which is in turn approximately 1% owned by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and 99% owned by an entity called a “trade union committee” for the holding company.
We know nothing about the internal governance procedures of the trade union committee. We do not know who the committee members or other trade union leaders are, or how they are selected.
Trade union members have no right to assets held by a trade union.
What have been called “employee shares” in “Huawei” are in fact at most contractual
interests in a profit-sharing scheme.
Given the public nature of trade unions in China, if the ownership stake of the trade union
committee is genuine, and if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions
generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned.
Regardless of who, in a practical sense, owns and controls Huawei, it is clear that the
employees do not.
Did you read Huawei's response to that?
The paper itself wasn't able to categorically state anything without qualify the affirmations beforehand.
There simply isn't enough publicly available documentation to draw that kind of certainty.
I take note that instead of providing a retort to my point you fell back on something that has been dealt with by me at least three times in replies to you.
Sorry, but if Huawei isn't transparent with it's "publicly available documentation", and if its response doesn't address the issue of employee ownership, then there is, as you would say, no evidence that Huawei is not a state supported company.
It's a private company. One of the advantages is that it doesn't have to be as transparent as you want it to be. No private company does. This isn't a Huawei only thing.
I have no idea where you are going with 'profits'. As long as they exist, there is no problem. What counts are products.
Consumers aren't interested in a company's financials. In fact that can end up being counterproductive if the company is awash with profits through high pricing but not delivering enough advances when compared to cheaper competition. Competition that can often not only be 'good enough' but noticeably ahead of Apple.
Paying more, just to fill Apple's coffers, is not my idea of a competitive product offer. If more people baulk at Apple's iPhone pricing (as they seem to be doing), Apple's business will be negatively affected. That's what's happening now.
BTW, I see you are still avoiding giving a response to my observation on TC meeting DT to ensure business protection for Apple.
TC meeting DT is just traditional corporate lobbying and legal in the U.S. More to the point, TC has been a fountain of advice wrt the current trade negotiations. Of course TC will be against Tariffs.
DT will do what he wants, and for a fact, isn't protecting Apple from Huawei in any sense. Huawei's problem is directly tied to its roots in China and the CCP.
Oh, and that little Prague conference, while non-binding, looks to put substantial constraints on Huawei's 5G buildouts in Europe, as there should be.
Kudos to the Czechs and Australia for forcing this, and all Five Eyes were present.
The Justice Department's intervention in the Qualcomm FTC case is much more unfavorable to Huawei;
"The Justice Department’s intervention
Reuters reports that the Justice Department is concerned about what might happen should the FTC win the case. Anything which hurt Qualcomm too deeply could threaten the USA’s place in the future of 5G.
The Justice Department’s filing asked Judge Lucy Koh of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California to hold a hearing on any possible remedies if she finds Qualcomm liable for antitrust violations and argued that “a remedy should work as little injury as possible to other public policies,” according to the filing.
The Justice Department said that any penalties Judge Koh might impose should not hamper the market for 5G, the next generation of mobile networks that are expected to be up to 100 times faster than current networks. The United States, China and Korea will roll out those networks this year and next, and Qualcomm makes so-called modem chips that allow smart phones and other devices to connect to those networks.
It said that a penalty designed to punish anti-competitive behavior could, ironically, reduce competition in the 5G market.
“There is a plausible prospect that an overly broad remedy in this case could reduce competition and innovation in markets for 5G technology and downstream applications that rely on that technology,” the Justice Department wrote. “Such an outcome could exceed the appropriate scope of an equitable antitrust remedy. Moreover, it has the distinct potential to harm rather than help competition.”
Getting a private one-on-one audience with the president of the United States is not 'traditional lobbying'. It creates distrust among industry peers. Not unlike when, in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum, Theresa May invited Nissan to talks in Downing Street.
TC has definitely not been a fountain of advice for trade negotiations. First, you were not privy to the talks - no one was. They were private. Except for generic advice TC cannot offer on trade negotiation. TC himself is not privy to the ongoing multilateral complexities of trade negotiations which can twist and turn at any moment. Unless you are participating or receiving regular briefs, you have little to offer.
Being legal is irrelevant. My point was that the same situation happening on the other side (which would also be legal) would have you interpreting Chinese government tie ins with Huawei and launching all your conspiracy theory madness.
TC is against tariffs that affect his business interests. I don't know that if he were president that would change. Don't confuse TC speaking as CEO of Apple with TC speaking as the president. His ideas and approach may be radically different.
DT is most definitely protecting Apple from Huawei. Pressuring AT&T into backing out of a national handset distribution deal 'kept the wolf at bay' on Apple's home turf. Seeing as no Huawei phones have been banned in the 17 months since that move, it was clearly a protectionist move. Yes, protectionism.
Something you tried to argue was not the case because the US has no 5G options. However, now you are highlighting a possible conflict of interest in the QC case on the grounds that a harsh ruling may be detrimental to 5G competition! What's it to be?
What is happening here is that the US is worried about a harsh ruling affecting its ability to compete with foreign 5G options. That is something entirely different. There is plenty of competition in 5G even without QC. Protectionism again. Reuters' reading of the situation (in the quotes above) is spot on.
TC had decades of supply chain experience in China, and is considered an expert source, as he should be, so of course, his opinions will be listened to.
DT is not protecting Apple from Huawei, though you might be correct that U.S. policy favors all vendors other than Huawei and ZTE for smartphones, and certainly, no Huawei or ZTE at all for telecom. That has more to do with the Senate, and National Security Agencies, than it does DT.
As I have stated many times previously, the Chinese Government and the CCP are seen as deeply imbedded in Huawei, by many countries, not just the U.S.
Rather than blaming DT, you might want to consider that Xi Jinping has regressed China to be even more authoritarian since he has been in power, and certainly, China has become a larger threat to the West.
As for Qualcomm, Nations have the right to maintain technology bases, and Qualcomm certainly meets that standard for 5G. Consider this, and the previous block of the Broadcom purchase of Qualcomm, as a U.S. wakeup call to maintaining a healthy, and independent, telecom industry. Expect the U.S. to be back in the game for 6G, to arrive in a 2030 timeframe.
It's a darn shame Apple gradually priced itself out of the global smartphone market. There's no choice but to lower prices on iPhones because there aren't any features Apple could add to the iPhone to attract consumers. Apple really had a good iPhone business for so many years but I'm guessing those days are over. Apple certainly wasn't able to put any Chinese smartphone manufacturer out of business and each year those Chinese smartphone vendors got stronger by adding more features and building higher-quality smartphones. It seems as though Apple has lost its iPhone business in China with no hope of gaining those customers back. Every year, Apple loses more and more market share percentage. I wonder if that will ever stop. Android, as a whole, is just killing Apple in terms of market share percentage and there's nothing Apple can do about it except to find some alternate revenue streams.
Competitors have simply stepped ahead of Apple. It isn't that Apple can't compete. More that it simply chose notto and thought users would buy into the deal anyway. Call it arrogance, complacency or whatever you prefer but although Apple dropped the 'S' from the name, it still has an 'S' cycle. To make matters far, far worse, the that cycle sits within a yearly refresh cycle.
With regards to the competition, Apple has become a technological sloth. By the time Apple gets around to releasing a competitive product (assuming it is competitive) later this year, two years will have passed since the iPhone X.
To contrast that with Huawei, in the same period they released a flagship everyquarter. ....
The current strategy of offering lower priced phones which are old, really isn't going to keep users interested while they see all the advances coming to Android at attractive price points.
That's my master plan anyway. :-)
While I generally agree with you about Huawei, I disagree on this. Huawei, while not a newbie, simply doesn't have the reputation to protect. if they put out a phone with a defect, they can either shrug or fix it and move on. If Apple makes even the slightest of errors, it is international news and they are punished in every way shape or form -- even on a rumor that there might be a defect. ... So, Apple has to be cautious rather that constantly pushing the envelope as a Huawei can do.
And for using older to products to provide lower cost products: I think that is necessary because a big part of Apple's cost is not just the hardware (as it is for Huawei & Samsung) but Apple's software and ecosystem that others don't need to pay for -- so exploiting older designs and manufacturing systems helps them put out a quality, price competitive product. Plus, as I mentioned, Apple has to protect their reputation because they are held to a higher standard - so selling proven older phones is less risky than one designed to be cheap.
I mostly agree. The problem is that Apple is a slow mover in one the most dynamic consumer markets out there.
There's no problem in that as long as there are sales (although the 'markets' want growth in addition to sales). However, when sales flatten for so long and then contract you have two options: Do nothing (or virtually nothing) and hope the situation corrects itself (we all remember the rumoured 'supercycle') or you make changes to adapt to a new reality (saturation among others).
I think the second option is the only way forward now, given how much the smartphone world has changed/advanced.
I follow what you say on the difficulties and risks though.
The changes are already here and started with the 2017 refresh (which I applauded). First with the simple, low risk, changes. Last year they should have taken that a step further IMO but they chose to play safe and try to squeeze more money out of people by increasing prices and shipping a simply iterative upgrade with the usual 'storage upsell' to annoy users.
Two quarters down the road, it has backfired in a big way.
Other factors have come into play such as the 5G misstep and the 'batterygate' problems which have accentuated the underlying issues.
Rumours say the Kirin 985 will have the Balong 5000 on the SoC. If that is true, it means that every model that uses it (it will be announced in around four months) will automatically and natively be a 5G phone. That is going to be a huge amount of phones.
Others, in the mid range, will ship with the Kirin 980 + Balong 5000, which will be another huge amount of phones.
I would introduce an SE style iPhone around MWC2020 with an A12, hole punch LCD, rear mounted TouchID (shock!), gradient finish and an attractive price.
Something with a fresh design and plenty of power while not being at the very top end if the line and released out of the traditional iPhone refresh window.
You surely must be aware that Apple's iPhone generated more revenue, and at a much higher rate of profit, than Huawei's entire business did, for the quarter. Given that Huawei is state supported, they can live with very low rates of profit. In the West, that wouldn't be possible under stockholder ownership.
For you ASP's don't matter, but they do for corporations. Sooner than later, the Android OS Device Market will be saturated, and in decline. Do you really think that now is the time for Apple to reverse years of profitability to chase marketshare, when their iPhone user base keeps expanding.
For the record, I purchased a refurbished iPhone 8 for my brother yesterday for $349.00. I don't know if it was refurbished by Apple, or some third party, but I do know that that is a very good value. It is, interestingly enough, not much larger than the SE, and would certainly fulfill that position if and until Apple does create a replacement to the SE.
I am not concerned by Huawei's frequent product releases, nor Apple's lack of 5G for this fall. All they are doing is training customers to expect frequent new models, and price drops as they are replaced. You actually explained that to me as your "value" strategy.
Two, different, markets. Apple is an entire ecosystem including the iPhone, while Android OS device makers compete, for the most part, with each other based on hardware and UI. As the market saturates, there will be a race to the bottom until the device makers consolidate. That could begin, if it hasn't already, at any time.
Congratulations on the iPhone 8. That is a great price.
The main Android market is already saturated and has been for a couple of years now.
We are seeing convergence as a result but is some of the smaller non-niche players who are feeling the pinch. That said, much more effort is being put into other 'less developed' markets which have great potential. Obviously, without a change in business model, Apple will find it difficult to expand into those markets but has plenty of room to claim some of that 80% Android share.
Huawei isn't government funded. They've made that clear.
As for profit, they make more than enough to finance huge R&D budgets become more vertically integrated by the day and have huge plans for every rung on the tech ladder going forward. Some of those plans might seem scary to you:
I've posted a few times about Huawei's so called "employee ownership", and unless and until Huawei becomes more transparent in its financials, the West cannot assume that they are anything other than a state supported company.
Here's a response from a commenter of wrt the report and Huawei's response;
"Don: I think you know why Huawei objects so strongly to this English-language report, for which I congratulate you and Christopher. Huawei is fighting on multiple fronts what it views as a life-and-death struggle for markets in OECD countries where there seems to emerging a (excuse the expression) “united front” to keep Huawei out. The basis for this determination is the perceived domination of Huawei and every other PRC company by the Communist Party and their alignment with China’s geostrategic aims. Easily accessible commentary in English by knowledgeable foreign China experts which undermines the false narrative that Huawei is simply like every other private business corporation owned by its shareholders may defeat or hinder Huawei’s global ambition."
'perceived'. What a surprise.
Experts differ. Huawei could clear this up with transparency of their financials. They didn't do that.
Huawei, much to your chagrin is a private company. As such it provides audited accounts and complies with Chinese law.
It has made statements on everything that you have protested about but if you still don't believe them, it's time to let go.
As for connections with the Chinese government, chew on this:
Tim Cook has had many private one-on-ones with Donald Trump. It is said that he received promises from the president that Apple would not be affected by tariff changes in the dispute with China. Tariffs that directly impact Huawei's business.
So, on the one hand Apple is being favoured to the tune of millions while Huawei is being impacted to the tune of millions.
If this were the other way around and it was the CEO of Huawei having one-on-ones with the president of China to lobby for protection of its business, you would be howling about it.
Chinese Law; isn't that controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, aka, the Chinese Government?
Of course, you won't read it, because of your obvious bias.
Here's the summary;
In summary, we find the following:
The Huawei operating company is 100% owned by a holding company, which is in turn approximately 1% owned by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and 99% owned by an entity called a “trade union committee” for the holding company.
We know nothing about the internal governance procedures of the trade union committee. We do not know who the committee members or other trade union leaders are, or how they are selected.
Trade union members have no right to assets held by a trade union.
What have been called “employee shares” in “Huawei” are in fact at most contractual
interests in a profit-sharing scheme.
Given the public nature of trade unions in China, if the ownership stake of the trade union
committee is genuine, and if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions
generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned.
Regardless of who, in a practical sense, owns and controls Huawei, it is clear that the
employees do not.
Did you read Huawei's response to that?
The paper itself wasn't able to categorically state anything without qualify the affirmations beforehand.
There simply isn't enough publicly available documentation to draw that kind of certainty.
I take note that instead of providing a retort to my point you fell back on something that has been dealt with by me at least three times in replies to you.
Sorry, but if Huawei isn't transparent with it's "publicly available documentation", and if its response doesn't address the issue of employee ownership, then there is, as you would say, no evidence that Huawei is not a state supported company.
It's a private company. One of the advantages is that it doesn't have to be as transparent as you want it to be. No private company does. This isn't a Huawei only thing.
I have no idea where you are going with 'profits'. As long as they exist, there is no problem. What counts are products.
Consumers aren't interested in a company's financials. In fact that can end up being counterproductive if the company is awash with profits through high pricing but not delivering enough advances when compared to cheaper competition. Competition that can often not only be 'good enough' but noticeably ahead of Apple.
Paying more, just to fill Apple's coffers, is not my idea of a competitive product offer. If more people baulk at Apple's iPhone pricing (as they seem to be doing), Apple's business will be negatively affected. That's what's happening now.
BTW, I see you are still avoiding giving a response to my observation on TC meeting DT to ensure business protection for Apple.
TC meeting DT is just traditional corporate lobbying and legal in the U.S. More to the point, TC has been a fountain of advice wrt the current trade negotiations. Of course TC will be against Tariffs.
DT will do what he wants, and for a fact, isn't protecting Apple from Huawei in any sense. Huawei's problem is directly tied to its roots in China and the CCP.
Oh, and that little Prague conference, while non-binding, looks to put substantial constraints on Huawei's 5G buildouts in Europe, as there should be.
Kudos to the Czechs and Australia for forcing this, and all Five Eyes were present.
The Justice Department's intervention in the Qualcomm FTC case is much more unfavorable to Huawei;
"The Justice Department’s intervention
Reuters reports that the Justice Department is concerned about what might happen should the FTC win the case. Anything which hurt Qualcomm too deeply could threaten the USA’s place in the future of 5G.
The Justice Department’s filing asked Judge Lucy Koh of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California to hold a hearing on any possible remedies if she finds Qualcomm liable for antitrust violations and argued that “a remedy should work as little injury as possible to other public policies,” according to the filing.
The Justice Department said that any penalties Judge Koh might impose should not hamper the market for 5G, the next generation of mobile networks that are expected to be up to 100 times faster than current networks. The United States, China and Korea will roll out those networks this year and next, and Qualcomm makes so-called modem chips that allow smart phones and other devices to connect to those networks.
It said that a penalty designed to punish anti-competitive behavior could, ironically, reduce competition in the 5G market.
“There is a plausible prospect that an overly broad remedy in this case could reduce competition and innovation in markets for 5G technology and downstream applications that rely on that technology,” the Justice Department wrote. “Such an outcome could exceed the appropriate scope of an equitable antitrust remedy. Moreover, it has the distinct potential to harm rather than help competition.”
Getting a private one-on-one audience with the president of the United States is not 'traditional lobbying'. It creates distrust among industry peers. Not unlike when, in the immediate aftermath of the Brexit referendum, Theresa May invited Nissan to talks in Downing Street.
TC has definitely not been a fountain of advice for trade negotiations. First, you were not privy to the talks - no one was. They were private. Except for generic advice TC cannot offer on trade negotiation. TC himself is not privy to the ongoing multilateral complexities of trade negotiations which can twist and turn at any moment. Unless you are participating or receiving regular briefs, you have little to offer.
Being legal is irrelevant. My point was that the same situation happening on the other side (which would also be legal) would have you interpreting Chinese government tie ins with Huawei and launching all your conspiracy theory madness.
TC is against tariffs that affect his business interests. I don't know that if he were president that would change. Don't confuse TC speaking as CEO of Apple with TC speaking as the president. His ideas and approach may be radically different.
DT is most definitely protecting Apple from Huawei. Pressuring AT&T into backing out of a national handset distribution deal 'kept the wolf at bay' on Apple's home turf. Seeing as no Huawei phones have been banned in the 17 months since that move, it was clearly a protectionist move. Yes, protectionism.
Something you tried to argue was not the case because the US has no 5G options. However, now you are highlighting a possible conflict of interest in the QC case on the grounds that a harsh ruling may be detrimental to 5G competition! What's it to be?
What is happening here is that the US is worried about a harsh ruling affecting its ability to compete with foreign 5G options. That is something entirely different. There is plenty of competition in 5G even without QC. Protectionism again. Reuters' reading of the situation (in the quotes above) is spot on.
TC had decades of supply chain experience in China, and is considered an expert source, as he should be, so of course, his opinions will be listened to.
DT is not protecting Apple from Huawei, though you might be correct that U.S. policy favors all vendors other than Huawei and ZTE for smartphones, and certainly, no Huawei or ZTE at all for telecom. That has more to do with the Senate, and National Security Agencies, than it does DT.
As I have stated many times previously, the Chinese Government and the CCP are seen as deeply imbedded in Huawei, by many countries, not just the U.S.
Rather than blaming DT, you might want to consider that Xi Jinping has regressed China to be even more authoritarian since he has been in power, and certainly, China has become a larger threat to the West.
As for Qualcomm, Nations have the right to maintain technology bases, and Qualcomm certainly meets that standard for 5G. Consider this, and the previous block of the Broadcom purchase of Qualcomm, as a U.S. wakeup call to maintaining a healthy, and independent, telecom industry. Expect the U.S. to be back in the game for 6G, to arrive in a 2030 timeframe.
Oh! I get it now! "It's OK if the U.S. does it!" Got It!
Comments
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3008826/prague-30-countries-seek-united-approach-5g-security-amid-huawei
"“The customer – whether the government, operator, or manufacturer – must be able to be informed about the origin and pedigree of components and software that affect the security level of the product or service,” read the “Prague Proposal” document handed out at the end of the conference in the Czech capital.
“The overall risk of influence on a supplier by a third country should be taken into account, notably in relation to its model of governance, the absence of cooperation agreements on security,” the statement said.
It has made statements on everything that you have protested about but if you still don't believe them, it's time to let go.
As for connections with the Chinese government, chew on this:
Tim Cook has had many private one-on-ones with Donald Trump. It is said that he received promises from the president that Apple would not be affected by tariff changes in the dispute with China. Tariffs that directly impact Huawei's business.
So, on the one hand Apple is being favoured to the tune of millions while Huawei is being impacted to the tune of millions.
If this were the other way around and it was the CEO of Huawei having one-on-ones with the president of China to lobby for protection of its business, you would be howling about it.
I'll repost the link to the original work;
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3372669
Download as PDF
Of course, you won't read it, because of your obvious bias.
Here's the summary;
In summary, we find the following:
The Huawei operating company is 100% owned by a holding company, which is in turn approximately 1% owned by Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei and 99% owned by an entity called a “trade union committee” for the holding company.
We know nothing about the internal governance procedures of the trade union committee. We do not know who the committee members or other trade union leaders are, or how they are selected.
Trade union members have no right to assets held by a trade union.
What have been called “employee shares” in “Huawei” are in fact at most contractual
interests in a profit-sharing scheme.
Given the public nature of trade unions in China, if the ownership stake of the trade union
committee is genuine, and if the trade union and its committee function as trade unions
generally function in China, then Huawei may be deemed effectively state-owned.
Regardless of who, in a practical sense, owns and controls Huawei, it is clear that the
employees do not.
The paper itself wasn't able to categorically state anything without qualify the affirmations beforehand.
There simply isn't enough publicly available documentation to draw that kind of certainty.
I take note that instead of providing a retort to my point you fell back on something that has been dealt with by me at least three times in replies to you.
Of course, I would have to post this;
Samsung – Revenue: $44.7 billion | Profits: $5.3 billion
Huawei – Revenue: $26.8 billion | Profits: $2.1 billion
Apple – Revenue: $58 billion | Profits: $11.6 billion
Apple's iPhone revenue was $34 B alone, exceeding Huawei's total revenue
Chinese Government blocks conversations about the U.S. / China Trade War, on WeChat
Nobody could have seen that coming...
I have no idea where you are going with 'profits'. As long as they exist, there is no problem. What counts are products.
Consumers aren't interested in a company's financials. In fact that can end up being counterproductive if the company is awash with profits through high pricing but not delivering enough advances when compared to cheaper competition. Competition that can often not only be 'good enough' but noticeably ahead of Apple.
Paying more, just to fill Apple's coffers, is not my idea of a competitive product offer. If more people baulk at Apple's iPhone pricing (as they seem to be doing), Apple's business will be negatively affected. That's what's happening now.
BTW, I see you are still avoiding giving a response to my observation on TC meeting DT to ensure business protection for Apple.
DT will do what he wants, and for a fact, isn't protecting Apple from Huawei in any sense. Huawei's problem is directly tied to its roots in China and the CCP.
Oh, and that little Prague conference, while non-binding, looks to put substantial constraints on Huawei's 5G buildouts in Europe, as there should be.
Kudos to the Czechs and Australia for forcing this, and all Five Eyes were present.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/cyber-officials-call-for-coordinated-5g-security-approach/2019/05/03/4a2c5508-6db5-11e9-bbe7-1c798fb80536_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.f961b43409dd
The Justice Department's intervention in the Qualcomm FTC case is much more unfavorable to Huawei;
"The Justice Department’s intervention
Reuters reports that the Justice Department is concerned about what might happen should the FTC win the case. Anything which hurt Qualcomm too deeply could threaten the USA’s place in the future of 5G.
It said that a penalty designed to punish anti-competitive behavior could, ironically, reduce competition in the 5G market.
TC has definitely not been a fountain of advice for trade negotiations. First, you were not privy to the talks - no one was. They were private. Except for generic advice TC cannot offer on trade negotiation. TC himself is not privy to the ongoing multilateral complexities of trade negotiations which can twist and turn at any moment. Unless you are participating or receiving regular briefs, you have little to offer.
Being legal is irrelevant. My point was that the same situation happening on the other side (which would also be legal) would have you interpreting Chinese government tie ins with Huawei and launching all your conspiracy theory madness.
TC is against tariffs that affect his business interests. I don't know that if he were president that would change. Don't confuse TC speaking as CEO of Apple with TC speaking as the president. His ideas and approach may be radically different.
DT is most definitely protecting Apple from Huawei. Pressuring AT&T into backing out of a national handset distribution deal 'kept the wolf at bay' on Apple's home turf. Seeing as no Huawei phones have been banned in the 17 months since that move, it was clearly a protectionist move. Yes, protectionism.
Something you tried to argue was not the case because the US has no 5G options. However, now you are highlighting a possible conflict of interest in the QC case on the grounds that a harsh ruling may be detrimental to 5G competition! What's it to be?
What is happening here is that the US is worried about a harsh ruling affecting its ability to compete with foreign 5G options. That is something entirely different. There is plenty of competition in 5G even without QC. Protectionism again. Reuters' reading of the situation (in the quotes above) is spot on.
DT is not protecting Apple from Huawei, though you might be correct that U.S. policy favors all vendors other than Huawei and ZTE for smartphones, and certainly, no Huawei or ZTE at all for telecom. That has more to do with the Senate, and National Security Agencies, than it does DT.
As I have stated many times previously, the Chinese Government and the CCP are seen as deeply imbedded in Huawei, by many countries, not just the U.S.
Rather than blaming DT, you might want to consider that Xi Jinping has regressed China to be even more authoritarian since he has been in power, and certainly, China has become a larger threat to the West.
As for Qualcomm, Nations have the right to maintain technology bases, and Qualcomm certainly meets that standard for 5G. Consider this, and the previous block of the Broadcom purchase of Qualcomm, as a U.S. wakeup call to maintaining a healthy, and independent, telecom industry. Expect the U.S. to be back in the game for 6G, to arrive in a 2030 timeframe.