Apple's iPhone marketshare dips in Q4, Samsung falters under pressure from low-cost OEMs

Posted:
in iPhone edited February 2014
Apple's smartphone marketshare continues to ease downward despite record sales for the company's latest handsets, while rival Samsung's share of the Android ecosystem is being squeezed in key markets, according to new analysis covering the fourth quarter of 2013.

Kantar
Source: Kantar Worldpanel ComTech


A new report from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech released Monday shows Apple ceding the top of the podium in most regions once again to handsets running Google's Android operating system. Apple's iOS took 18.5 percent of the market in Europe, 43.9 percent in the U.S., and and 19 percent in China to Android's 68.6 percent, 50.6 percent, and 78.6 percent, respectively.

One country where Apple continues to dominate, however, is Japan. The iPhone accounted for 68.7 percent of smartphones sold to Japanese consumers in the fourth quarter and was the top-selling smartphone on all three of Japan's major wireless carriers --?Apple's handset booked 58.1 percent of sales at NTT DoCoMo, 91.7 percent at SoftBank, and 63.7 percent at AU's KDDI.

Meanwhile, Apple rival Samsung has begun to feel pressure from competing Android manufacturers, according to the report. The South Korean conglomerate's marketshare dropped 2.2 points to 40.3 percent in Europe and merely kept pace at 23.7 percent in China, which Kantar attributes in part to the proliferation of lower-cost local brands in the East Asian nation.

"It's no surprise that everyone is concentrating on high growth China, but currently local brands are proving clear winners. In December, Xiaomi overtook both Apple and Samsung to become the top selling smartphone in China - a truly remarkable achievement for a brand which was only started in 2010 and sells its device almost exclusively online," said Dominic Sunnebo, the group's strategic insight director.

"The combination of high spec devices, low prices and an ability to create unprecedented buzz through online and social platforms has proved an irresistible proposition for the Chinese," he continued.

For its part, Microsoft's Windows Phone platform is at a standstill. Windows Phone's 10.3 percent market share in Europe remained virtually unchanged from Kantar's previous analysis, and the operating system has not taken more than six percent of any other market.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 86
    quadra 610quadra 610 Posts: 6,757member

    Apple doesn't cater to the lower ends of the market where Android saturates the channel with cheapo options. Apple is focused on making money. And additionally, Apple owns the US, the market with the most star power in terms of tech.

     

    A substantial chunk of the market doesn't go in for the incremental "s" bump either, but waits for the next full revision. 

  • Reply 2 of 86

    Marketshare is interesting information, but not that relevant as it leaves out the key metric of growth in the market.  If Apple holds a stable market share in a rapidly growing market this is frequently preferable to taking market share.  I have worked in a very profitable business that has used this strategy for more than a decade.  Taking market share frequently means lowering pricing to the point of hurting profitability.    The Smartphone market is growing rapidly so Apple is continuing to follow that growth.  The key question is can Apple convert market share taken by Android in the next stage growth markets of Latin America, India, Russia, and eventually Africa.  I think the key in Latin American and India will new strategies that improve the overall cost effectiveness of the iPhone.  I would guess they need a total new approach in these markets.  

  • Reply 3 of 86
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    Of course this means only Apple is doomed. Everyone else makes it up in volume. /s
  • Reply 4 of 86
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    Apple stock is up about 1% this morning. Is the stock usually up on earnings day?
  • Reply 5 of 86
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    rogifan wrote: »
    Apple stock is up about 1% this morning. Is the stock usually up on earnings day?

    Sometimes but probably because WS wants to see a large drop when earning are announced. :)
  • Reply 6 of 86
    totaltotal Posts: 83member

    i think percent up or down in regular trading is today irrelevant, all important will happen after close, last year it was -12% or so, so lets hope today it will be +12%. Ok now back to reality, lets wait and see! i made small survey to my friends what aaple products they bought in Q4 and no clue from that, for example one friend who always buy new iphone, this year bought just ipad air, not iphone, because he said "why should i, i have IP5 and touch id is useless for me".;) 

  • Reply 7 of 86
    herbapouherbapou Posts: 2,228member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post



    Apple stock is up about 1% this morning. Is the stock usually up on earnings day?

     

    any stock will be volatile on earning days, the price could go in any direction.

     

    Regarding the numbers, Apple is down in all countries.  Apple made the choice of increasing margins, so it is bound to hurt unit sales. That being said, if the smartphone market is growing, Apple YoY numbers may still be positive, but dont expect a blowout in unit sales. Margins should be up, or it will be a major fail.

     

    Personnaly I dont agree with Apple because at some point if the market share drops too much, it will hurt the ecosystems because dev's will move to Android and we will have a repeat of the Mac.

     

    I think Apple will have a market share play with the 5c when the iphone 6 launch. Apple should work in fine tuning the 5c production lines in order to achieve a $350 price point instead of the usual $450 for the 2 years old phone.

  • Reply 8 of 86
    aaronjaaronj Posts: 1,595member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by herbapou View Post

     

     

    any stock will be volatile on earning days, the price could go in any direction.

     

    Regarding the numbers, Apple is down in all countries.  Apple made the choice of increasing margins, so it is bound to hurt unit sales. That being said, if the smartphone market is growing, Apple YoY numbers may still be positive, but dont expect a blowout in unit sales. Margins should be up, or it will be a major fail.

     

    Personnaly I dont agree with Apple because at some point if the market share drops too much, it will hurt the ecosystems because dev's will move to Android and we will have a repeat of the Mac.

     

    I think Apple will have a market share play with the 5c when the iphone 6 launch. Apple should work in fine tuning the 5c production lines in order to achieve a $350 price point instead of the usual $450 for the 2 years old phone.


     

    People have been saying that devs will move for YEARS.  The fact of the matter, though, is that Android users don't spend anywhere near as much money as iOS users.  So marketshare might be sort of fascinating from a purely "What are the numbers?" perspective, it doesn't really pose much of a threat to iOS.

     

    Much -- MUCH -- of that Android marketshare growth is in very inexpensive phones.  People who buy those aren't heading to Google Play and buying your new $9.99 app.  They just aren't.

  • Reply 9 of 86
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    herbapou wrote: »
    any stock will be volatile on earning days, the price could go in any direction.

    Regarding the numbers, Apple is down in all countries.  Apple made the choice of increasing margins, so it is bound to hurt unit sales. That being said, if the smartphone market is growing, Apple YoY numbers may still be positive, but dont expect a blowout in unit sales. Margins should be up, or it will be a major fail.

    Personnaly I dont agree with Apple because at some point if the market share drops too much, it will hurt the ecosystems because dev's will move to Android and we will have a repeat of the Mac. I think Apple will have a market share play with the 5c when the iphone 6 launch.
    Hmm...Apple is up over 1% today and Google is down over 2% after they were down about 3% on Friday. I'm sorry but I think these market share figures from independent firms are meaningless. Where are they getting the numbers from? What's their historical reliability? And why should Apple care about dirt cheap Android phones? Who besides Samsung is making a decent profit in that space? Developers care about a platform where they know people are using their apps, where they know people will pay for apps. Devs aren't going to move to Android because of cheap hardware that is mostly being used as a phone and for texting. Also how sticky is Android? It seems pretty clear that the increase in Android market share is due to cheap phones (Moto is reducing the price of Moto X again). Apple will never win a race to the bottom war. They need to stay a premium brand and they need to design and build products that people are willing to pay a premium for. Let the Android OEMs fight it out at the low end.
  • Reply 10 of 86
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Quadra 610 View Post

     

    Apple doesn't cater to the lower ends of the market where Android saturates the channel with cheapo options. Apple is focused on making money. And additionally, Apple owns the US, the market with the most star power in terms of tech.


    Did you miss the article? Looks like they owned the US last year but Android overtook them this year.

     

    These reports are interesting, but they do provide only a limited not particularly representative view. I think everyone knew Android was going to end up this way as Google took the Microsoft approach. The question is whether Apple can continue to distinguish their products from the crowd. It all hinges on the 'New iPhone' (calling it not being the '6') in my eyes.

  • Reply 11 of 86
    herbapouherbapou Posts: 2,228member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by AaronJ View Post

     

     

    People have been saying that devs will move for YEARS.  The fact of the matter, though, is that Android users don't spend anywhere near as much money as iOS users.  So marketshare might be sort of fascinating from a purely "What are the numbers?" perspective, it doesn't really pose much of a threat to iOS.

     

    Much -- MUCH -- of that Android marketshare growth is in very inexpensive phones.  People who buy those aren't heading to Google Play and buying your new $9.99 app.  They just aren't.


     

    that is true and this is why Apple ecosystem is still fine.  But if Android gets up to 90% or more market share, ios will fall apart regardless, It would be better if windows could make a comeback and keep mid-range and low-end fragmented.

  • Reply 12 of 86
    herbapouherbapou Posts: 2,228member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post





    Hmm...Apple is up over 1% today and Google is down over 2% after they were down about 3% on Friday. I'm sorry but I think these market share figures from independent firms are meaningless. Where are they getting the numbers from? What's their historical reliability? And why should Apple care about dirt cheap Android phones? Who besides Samsung is making a decent profit in that space? Developers care about a platform where they know people are using their apps, where they know people will pay for apps. Devs aren't going to move to Android because of cheap hardware that is mostly being used as a phone and for texting. Also how sticky is Android? It seems pretty clear that the increase in Android market share is due to cheap phones (Moto is reducing the price of Moto X again). Apple will never win a race to the bottom war. They need to stay a premium brand and they need to design and build products that people are willing to pay a premium for. Let the Android OEMs fight it out at the low end.

     

    Seriously , discrediting any reseach firm that prints bad numbers on Apple in getting old.

  • Reply 13 of 86
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    Google is now down around 3%. If that holds the stock will be down over 6% in the last two trading days. I'd say that's pretty significant for a company valued at over $350B. Obviously these market share estimates don't mean much to Wall Street.
  • Reply 14 of 86
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    herbapou wrote: »
    Seriously , discrediting any reseach firm that prints bad numbers on Apple in getting old.
    That's not why I'm discrediting them. I do it to all of them, and I'd do it whether numbers were favorable to Apple or not. You tell me where they are getting their numbers from and why we should trust them. It seems to me people buy into these numbers because they fit their preconceived notion of what they think Apple is doing wrong. How about we wait and see what Apple has to say on their earnings call.
  • Reply 15 of 86
    herbapouherbapou Posts: 2,228member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post



    Google is now down around 3%. If that holds the stock will be down over 6% in the last two trading days. I'd say that's pretty significant for a company valued at over $350B. Obviously these market share estimates don't mean much to Wall Street.

     

    imo WS hopes Apple margins will go up, which will results in YoY EPS growth.

     

    We also need to keep those 2 stocks in perspective, GOOG P/E is 30 and APPL P/E is 14.  When markets go down people tend to get out of high PE stocks and move into low P/E ones if they seems undervalue.

  • Reply 16 of 86
    jexusjexus Posts: 373member
    "Meanwhile, Apple rival Samsung has begun to feel pressure from competing Android manufacturers, according to the report. The South Korean conglomerate's marketshare dropped 2.2 points to 40.3 percent in Europe and merely kept pace at 23.7 percent in China, which Kantar attributes in part to the proliferation of lower-cost local brands in the East Asian nation."


    This is the best part of the entire report. Samsung has needed some competitive attacks desperately, and it seems Motorola and Sony are starting to climb up there after them.
  • Reply 17 of 86
    nagrommenagromme Posts: 2,834member
    Translation: the bottom end of the market (even in the US) is the biggest end, and the slowest to saturate. Not the end with the best user experience, the best profits, or the greatest sales of developers' creations--but the end with the biggest unit volume. Common sense! If market share is a measure you find useful in some way, and if you feel that Android-all-lumped-together is equal to Apple in some meaningful sense, there is no way things could have progressed much differently than this.
  • Reply 18 of 86

    Apple shareholders might just as well volunteer to stick their necks under a guillotine with Tim Cook running the company.  There's not a snowball's chance in hell that Apple's share price will rise on earnings.  All the smart investors have already fled to Google and Amazon because those companies are completely into expansion and growth and they're willing to spend the money to do it.  Those companies want to be everywhere and do everything and investors totally are in favor of it because they can look down the road and see they'll get money back.  With Apple, forget it.  Apple seems to want to keep doing the same thing over and over and simply hoard whatever cash it makes for itself.  What investor wants to put money into a company content to be pounded into oblivion by more aggressive rivals.  They might as well just flush their money down the toilet for all the good it will do them.

     

    Apple is the wealthiest company by market cap towering way above all the rest of the companies on the stock exchange and yet shareholders are getting almost nothing back in return.  Apple's share performance totally sucked for all of 2013 in what was touted as the post-PC era yet all the PC companies share prices climbed to the top of Mt. Everest and Apple's share price sunk to Grand Canyon levels.  All those poor suckers who bought Apple in 2012 were completely hung out to dry.  I bet they'll never buy one share of Apple stock ever again.

  • Reply 19 of 86
    tmaytmay Posts: 6,311member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Jexus View Post



    "Meanwhile, Apple rival Samsung has begun to feel pressure from competing Android manufacturers, according to the report. The South Korean conglomerate's marketshare dropped 2.2 points to 40.3 percent in Europe and merely kept pace at 23.7 percent in China, which Kantar attributes in part to the proliferation of lower-cost local brands in the East Asian nation."





    This is the best part of the entire report. Samsung has needed some competitive attacks desperately, and it seems Motorola and Sony are starting to climb up there after them.

    Moto and Sony benefitting, or Chinese OEM's?

     

    My reading is that the Chinese OEM's are taking Samsung's low end share, for the most part.

     

    Have any links?

  • Reply 20 of 86

    These stories sure start a lot of tiresome threads.

     

    The only effect that a dip in market share has on Apple is a potential to stall any increases in the s/p.

     

    It doesn't affect Apple's health whatsoever.

     

    Carry on...

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