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

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  • Reply 21 of 86
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Rogifan View Post



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

     

    Well, It was down $10 after the Friday sell-off so some of that might be recovery buying. Pains me to say this but Constable Odo’s comment above is right on the mark. Apple may be a great company with great products but it’s bad news for investors lately. No money to be made by investing in Apple these days. 

  • Reply 22 of 86
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Constable Odo View Post

     

    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.


     

    Heh, sounds like you lost some money on Apple with that rant!  I lost some too but the price has been making a slow comeback.

     

    I kind of agree that Apple has been milking the iPhone and iPad a bit and haven't been very aggressive with changing the design, adding features, or coming out with new products.  It hasn't hurt them much (yet), but they're probably going to have to do something big this year or next year to stay on top or else the slow decline will continue.

  • Reply 23 of 86
    jexusjexus Posts: 373member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by tmay View Post

     

    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?


    Chinese OEM's in the developing nations you are right about that.

     

    In heavier areas, such as the EU for example, Sony has been playing an agressive game of catchup for a few months now.

     

    Motorola is gaining but an abysmal rate(number was .2% or something last time I checked) with regards to the developed world.

  • Reply 24 of 86
    Until these research companies, actually do some proper research, the numbers can mean anything.

    So only the trolls from any side of the debate will make anything out of these.

    My 85yo father in law just bought an Android phone, so now Apple is doomed.

    Why did he buy. It was $29 outright. He couldnt justify paying $39 for an old style keypad unit which ran I dont know what system.

    As for Apps, it hasnt enough memory for these and he isnt on the internet so he cant download any even if he knew what they were, but he has added to the band of the all "dominating" Android phone users.

    After many trips to Asia, you understand that when someone earns a $1 a day, they cant afford to buy $15 movies, so they share a movie among friends that they buy for 50c from a pirate vendor. Likewise they wont buy a $500 phone.

    The market share numbers are down for Apple AND Samsung, but the more interesting stats will be the units sold.

    Its like saying Ferrari who sold 50% more cars this year is in trouble because worldwide market share is down with Chinese car makers selling more. It tells us nothing.

    So until these clowns do proper research, I wouldnt be investing in their business, that's the only true metric you can gain from these published figures, as they reflect poorly on their business practice.
  • Reply 25 of 86
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    lkrupp wrote: »
    Well, It was down $10 after the Friday sell-off so some of that might be recovery buying. Pains me to say this but Constable Odo’s comment above is right on the mark. Apple may be a great company with great products but it’s bad news for investors lately. No money to be made by investing in Apple these days. 

    Well I'm an investor in it for the long haul. And I don't have all my eggs in the Apple basket so even though Apple hasn't been great recently my portfolio is still doing quite nicely. :)
  • Reply 26 of 86
    Lol
  • Reply 27 of 86
    thedbathedba Posts: 762member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by herbapou View Post

    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 don't agree with you because all these marketshare numbers tell is what is being sold per quarter.

    It does not say how many of which brand are actually in users' hands, better known as usage share. This is not a shipped vs. sold argument.

    To see how many handsets are actually finding their way to users' hands, you'd have to find out, of those handsets being sold, how many are upgrades staying at the same ecosystem. Example, Samsung Galaxy S2 upgraded to Galaxy S4, a new sale yes, but zero net usage share gain. And we're not finished yet. Example, I upgrade my iPhone 4S to a 5S, but  I gave  my old 4S to a relative who didn't have a phone before. That would be +1 usage share gain. Or even worse, I entice that relative that previously held an older Android handset to switch to iPhone thus resulting in a +2 usage share gain.

    What I'm trying to get at here, is that marketshare numbers are very easy to come buy and that is why tech publications, plaster them all over the place, once they're out. Usage share is a far better metric however at measuring an ecosystem's overall health. Net usage statistics continually favor Apple's ecosystem, despite it being clobbered by the qaurterly marketshare statistics.

    In other words, I wouldn't worry too much about Apple's ecosystem, especially since its two biggest competitors continually write software for its handsets.

  • Reply 28 of 86
    nealgnealg Posts: 132member

    First of all, it would be interesting to see what raw numbers they are working with. Second of all, wouldn't it have been better to see what Apple actually sold in terms of phones this afternoon than just putting up a guess this morning? I guess they are going for page views and will be putting out a correction(maybe) if the number they used for Apple this quarter is significantly different than what actually gets reported this afternoon. Lots of different stories out there about Apple these days. I will wait for the actual numbers to make any decisions that need to be made.

     

    Good luck out there.

     

    Neal

  • Reply 29 of 86
    herbapouherbapou Posts: 2,228member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TheDBA View Post

     

    I don't agree with you because all these marketshare numbers tell is what is being sold per quarter.

    It does not say how many of which brand are actually in users' hands, better known as usage share. This is not a shipped vs. sold argument.

    To see how many handsets are actually finding their way to users' hands, you'd have to find out, of those handsets being sold, how many are upgrades staying at the same ecosystem. Example, Samsung Galaxy S2 upgraded to Galaxy S4, a new sale yes, but zero net usage share gain. And we're not finished yet. Example, I upgrade my iPhone 4S to a 5S, but  I gave  my old 4S to a relative who didn't have a phone before. That would be +1 usage share gain. Or even worse, I entice that relative that previously held an older Android handset to switch to iPhone thus resulting in a +2 usage share gain.

    What I'm trying to get at here, is that marketshare numbers are very easy to come buy and that is why tech publications, plaster them all over the place, once they're out. Usage share is a far better metric however at measuring an ecosystem's overall health. Net usage statistics continually favor Apple's ecosystem, despite it being clobbered by the qaurterly marketshare statistics.

    In other words, I wouldn't worry too much about Apple's ecosystem, especially since its two biggest competitors continually write software for its handsets.


     

    Thats a good argument and could explain why Apple "usage" stats are always so high and in complete disconnect from those market shares based on sales.

  • Reply 30 of 86
    The report is misleading. If the iPhone has a 19% marketshare in China, that likely represents a substantial *gain* from previous estimates of 3% in September and 12% in October by Counterpoint. Considering that the iPhone is very expensive for Chinese, to capture nearly 1/5 the market is an amazing achievement.
  • Reply 31 of 86
    jkichlinejkichline Posts: 1,369member
    App
    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.

    Apple has been making me money hand over fist since I began investing. I started buying at $74 before the iPhone launched and it's been a nice ride since then. Sounds like you just don't know how to invest properly.

    Google makes money on ads. Ads! Seriously? Most companies I know are pulling their online search marketing and moving to social media and beyond. Google will soon find that out. Google makes nothing on Android. Nothing.

    But if you want to hitch a ride on a nice big ship sinking to the bottom of a sea of profit in a race to the bottom for the world domination of free and cheap, be my guest. Sounds like you'll just make another dumb investment. You can't fix stupid.
  • Reply 32 of 86
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Jexus View Post





    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.

    Couldn't agree more. I can't stand all the crap they stuff onto their products and with SK banning it and the increased competition hopefully we'll see much more interesting products emerge.

  • Reply 33 of 86
    tzeshantzeshan Posts: 2,351member

    Does this report make sense?  It is simply too general.  Most importantly I believe majority of Android phone users are not using the phone as a smartphone. 

     

    The devil is in the details.  Around the world even in the US many cheap Android phones are sold without a monthly data plan.  And the phones are as cheap as the old feature phone.  If the user does not do web browsing a lot what smartphone will he choose? 

     

    But are these the users that Jobs designed the iPhone for?  I think not. 

  • Reply 34 of 86
    tzeshantzeshan Posts: 2,351member

    I think Apple has an easy strategy to compete with Google.  Apple should work as hard as possible to reduce ads on the mobile devices.  This will not only reduce Google revenue it also makes the users feeling much comfortable. 

  • Reply 35 of 86
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by tzeshan View Post

     

    I think Apple has an easy strategy to compete with Google.  Apple should work as hard as possible to reduce ads on the mobile devices.  This will not only reduce Google revenue it also makes the users feeling much comfortable. 


     

    Apple's strategy seems clear already, they are using their own advertisement network. The problem is that they have no presence on Android devices and it seems likely they never will, wheras Google's presence is all over the Internet and on every platform. Apple's ad revenues therefore are tied directly to their device sales. That's not typically the case for Google.

  • Reply 36 of 86
    tzeshantzeshan Posts: 2,351member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ItsTheInternet View Post

     

     

    Apple's strategy seems clear already, they are using their own advertisement network. The problem is that they have no presence on Android devices and it seems likely they never will, wheras Google's presence is all over the Internet and on every platform. Apple's ad revenues therefore are tied directly to their device sales. That's not typically the case for Google.




    I disagree.  Apple market share in US is over 40%.  The users are mostly affluent and spend more time web browsing.  I don't think Apple should rely on ads for revenue.  This will be contradictory to the strategy I propose. Also Apple has repeatedly said giving its user best experience is its goal.  Reducing ads definitely will give users better experience.   Apple should give user a choice whether to accept ads.  This could spawn a new class of apps that are dedicated to advertising. 

  • Reply 37 of 86
    Apple's real competition is not Samsung's $600 S4. It is the $30-$50 pre-paid smart phones you can now pick up at Walmart. At less than one tenth the price, these phones are quite capable of doing all the thing users expect a smart phone to do. I picked up a $50 Nokia 520 from the Microsoft kiosk in front of the Apple store at my local mall. I expected it to be slow and cheaply designed. It actually had fast and fluid graphics and feels solid. It even has a built in GPS receiver unlike the $300 iPod Touch. This does not affect my love of Apple's products but they do look really expensive right now.
  • Reply 38 of 86
    thomprthompr Posts: 1,521member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by herbapou View Post

     

     

    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.


    This 90% on Android is not actually a repeat of the PC/Mac scenario, because in the latter case, all of the different hardware vendors were using the same OS that was tightly controlled and delivered ready-to-go from Microsoft.  This meant that developers could compile once and run anywhere (modulo a few bugs).  The state of things in the Android mobile device market is nowhere near the same, and it makes a huge difference from the perspective of the developer.  They can't just "choose" to go Android.  They have to choose to go "Android for Kindle", or "Android for Samsung S4", etc, etc, etc.  Yes, I know that there will be only modest tweaks for each variant, but when the number of variants are large, it drives cost up (especially when it comes to test and ongoing support).  Fragmentation isn't just a word, it's a way of life when you are developing Android products.  So, your analogy to the Mac/PC world is broken in a very important way.  Not to mention the higher monetization of iOS vs. Android that others indicated earlier.

     

    Another difference between iOS of today and Mac of yesteryear is that there is a huge market for iOS software.  Developers abandoned Mac before because the market was small potatoes in both absolute and relative terms.  The absolute size of the iOS market is too great to abandon.  Just look at the gains in App sales over time.  That should tell you something.

     

    In a nutshell, no... you shouldn't expect developers to leave iOS due to small relative market share.   There's just too much money on the table, and it is too easy to develop for once you have your development environment set up and experience behind you.

  • Reply 39 of 86
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    herbapou wrote: »

    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.
    I trust Apple knows what it's doing compared to advice from some random guy on the internet.

    GrangerFX wrote: »
    Apple's real competition is not Samsung's $600 S4. It is the $30-$50 pre-paid smart phones you can now pick up at Walmart. At less than one tenth the price, these phones are quite capable of doing all the thing users expect a smart phone to do. I picked up a $50 Nokia 520 from the Microsoft kiosk in front of the Apple store at my local mall. I expected it to be slow and cheaply designed. It actually had fast and fluid graphics and feels solid. It even has a built in GPS receiver unlike the $300 iPod Touch. This does not affect my love of Apple's products but they do look really expensive right now.
    Apple will never compete with the cheap phones. Why doesn't BMW release a sub $10000 car or Tiffany's sell costume jewelry? There is no money in it for them.
  • Reply 40 of 86
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by thompr View Post

     

    The state of things in the Android mobile device market is nowhere near the same, and it makes a huge difference from the perspective of the developer.  They can't just "choose" to go Android.  They have to choose to go "Android for Kindle", or "Android for Samsung S4", etc, etc, etc.  Yes, I know that there will be only modest tweaks for each variant, but when the number of variants are large, it drives cost up (especially when it comes to test and ongoing support).  Fragmentation isn't just a word, it's a way of life when you are developing Android products.  So, your analogy to the Mac/PC world is broken in a very important way. 


    This just isn't true at all. Windows has and retains a much wider range of hardware that it runs on. The reason it does so is because there are specific interfaces to write drivers for.

     

    Android works in a similar fashion, but your choice is basically between using Google's Play APIs or going with an alternate market and app framework like Amazon. The situation with weird bugs on specific platforms is basically identical to Windows.

     

    Fragmentation is a real thing, but because apps target the lowest version they need for support, and the market is automatically filtered of incompatible apps, it's not as bad as people make out.

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