I'm not flabbergasted that Samsung reported weak profits.
Smartphones are are becoming a commodity, I'm afraid, and that means that something has to give: either Apple's margins or Apple's sales. My feeling is that people like me will keep buying iPhones, but less frequently. Others will switch to Android. If Apple were to accommodate the whole market as they did for the iPod, then they would be able to enjoy a 60%+ market share. Alas, I fear that Tim Cook doesn't have the nous to follow in Steve Jobs' footsteps and make the bold decision to sell the iPhone at all price points.
I do like the idea of bringing out 4" iPhone models for the Western first world in the Spring, and saving the phablets for the third world in the autumn. This will help to even out iPhone sales and ease shortages.
Leasing solves the issue and more. They can lease the new iPhone for 1 year and then sell it again. It's making more than the price of one iPhone off of one iPhone. I'm not sure how people can't see this?! With every carrier, plus Apple itself, turning to leasing plans there is absolutely ZERO reason not to upgrade every year.
While Samsung makes high quality hardware, their devices are hobbled by a junk OS that is better characterized as spyware.
Nice to see Apple finally change the default search engine in iOS to something besides Google. Unfortunately, Mayer went back to her old friends at Google and many of the Yahoo searches are now routed through Google. As all of my devices are Google free, I changed the search engine to DuckDuckGo. But just the change to Yahoo for the default search will still hurt Google's ad revenues.
Google hurt their most capable Android device manufacturer. Without Samsung, Android's marketshare is destined to fall. Xiaomi and Huawei are not even in the same class as Samsung. It means far more potential for Apple and iOS to take additional marketshare from Android.
In the not too distant future, Apple's hardware from 2 generations back will be comparable to the highest end current Android hardware. Apple will have inexpensive hardware running on older technology outperforming the high end Android hardware and for a better price point. It's a bad situation for Google and Android.
Once the A9X goes into an iPad Air, the Android tablet market is in serious trouble. And without Samsung being able to bring out high end hardware running Android spyware, Google's mobile marketshare will tank.
Perhaps an inexpensive Huawei device running on Intel's Sophia SOCs might save the day for Android! That's not going to happen.
Apple's destruction of Samsung's high end handset profits means that Google and Android are in deep trouble. The Chinese won't be able to overcome Apple's dominance no matter how much their government subsidizes their own hardware manufacturers.
I'm not flabbergasted that Samsung reported weak profits. Smartphones are are becoming a commodity, I'm afraid, and that means that something has to give: either Apple's margins or Apple's sales. My feeling is that people like me will keep buying iPhones, but less frequently. Others will switch to Android. If Apple were to accommodate the whole market as they did for the iPod, then they would be able to enjoy a 60%+ market share. Alas, I fear that Tim Cook doesn't have the nous to follow in Steve Jobs' footsteps and make the bold decision to sell the iPhone at all price points. I do like the idea of bringing out 4" iPhone models for the Western first world in the Spring, and saving the phablets for the third world in the autumn. This will help to even out iPhone sales and ease shortages.
More horse puckey from you know who.
Few seem to realize the fundamental flaw with "data analysis": it can only look towards the past, and NEVER predict the future which is always wide open to change. The Apple iPhone will NEVER become a commodity as long as Apple continues to refresh its features and capabilities. Installed bases are also irrelevant, as Apple proves most every quarter with increasing sales and profits. There is absolutely no need for Apple to sell its iPhone "at all price points." This actually benefits those would-be owners by incentivizing them to simply make more/save more money in order to buy one.
That problem as well is that most of these idiots don't "analyze", they just repeat talking points (much like the political system). Peak iPhone (like peak oil a few years ago) is based on a talking point that "you can't grow infinitely" - which is a true statement, but utterly useless in terms of actually understanding anything. Of course Apple can't grow the iPhone forever, but that doesn't mean they can't grow it at meaningful rates for years to come. It also doesn't mean they won't grow other product lines to mitigate the impact of slowing iPhone growth.
Smartphones are unlikely to be a "commodity" for some time to come - at least not to those that would purchase the premium products. It is a mobile computer and for many the most important product in their life. Many will give up things in other areas rather than go with a smartphone that they don't like. This is probably the main understanding that analysts and forum idiots miss.
There are many factors and approaches that Apple are/can take to increase iPhone shipments each year, without taking the "advice" of just reducing the price across the board: - Unless a long-lasting global recession, the continuing growth of middle class world wide continues to grow the market for the premium smartphone. - Apple Upgrade program can expand to many markets & also to other products, providing an affordable way to own Apple products. This can lead some to upgrade more frequently - Trade-ins should increase in Tier 1 markets with upgrade programs, and this allows Apple a path to sell lower priced models in emerging markets as required (refurbished 2/3-year old lower end device can sold below the current lowest price of a new iPhone while still protecting the value of the line). - Apple is one of perhaps 2-3 companies (and certainly far away the best positioned) with the technical & financial resources to push the boundaries of new h/w features. Cameras, CPU/GPU & local processing, sensors. This keeps new iPhones worth upgrading to (on 2-3 year cycles for some, or every year for others). - Improve Apple Care to make owning more Apple products easier with coverage (essentially a family plan). - And of course, as they do, continuing to expand the ecosystem.
The /s at the end of any post means the poster was being sarcastic.
Sorry then...
I usually don't use the "/s" tag as it kills the joke for me but I kinda had to this time considering how strange the market is and didn't want people to take it serious and bash me or ask for sources.
Samsung's high end phone sales are continuing to fall. Samsung's pain is Apple's gain. Apple has to be growing its iPhone sales taking up the slack.
Unless ... the phone phone market is contracting. But I don't think it is. Phones are today's #1 must-have gizmos.
I personally think all this doom and gloom talk about Apple is wrong.... and we'll see over the next few months that Apple's success story is continuing.
DED is often criticized for his writing style, and folks often pick out some nit to pick on his interpretation of the facts, but show me any analyst anywhere who delves into the sea of information to uncover 10% of the facts DED brings to light on the reality of Apple's business. Anyone? Who among the analyst community has even a shred of a clue? Most follow many stocks, none at sufficient level of detail to truly comprehend the underlying businesses. And yet these are the folks setting the price direction.
The thing that impresses me about DED is the way he disseminates the countless number of articles over the years. Honestly, unless the guy has a photographic memory, I'd love it if DED one day sits down and does an interview in how he manages to sift through all that information, history, people, etc..
DED is often criticized for his writing style, and folks often pick out some nit to pick on his interpretation of the facts, but show me any analyst anywhere who delves into the sea of information to uncover 10% of the facts DED brings to light on the reality of Apple's business. Anyone? Who among the analyst community has even a shred of a clue? Most follow many stocks, none at sufficient level of detail to truly comprehend the underlying businesses. And yet these are the folks setting the price direction.
Agreed. Big fan of DED from his Roughly Drafted days and his spots on Tech Night Owl podcasts to AI articles and occasional podcasts, in fact I now only listen to episodes of TNO and AI podcasts if he's on them.
As for all the supplier hoopla, one commenter suggested that where there is smoke there's fire and I would agree, but it seems he implied the fire could only be indeed a slowdown. However I think the fire could also be intentional misrepresentation as many have suggested, but they all seem to point to the same source, namely traders and other WS shysters. For all we know, in light of Samsung's current self-declared failings, their finance department may have borrowed their marketing's PR team to rev up their FUD machine in a vain attempt to temporarily soften the hit their stock is about to take at earnings call. For all we know it could even be Apple itself strategically maneuvering some orders knowing full well that will arouse WS analysts and bring the stock down so that Tim can finish the stock buyback with one last huge bid at big blowout bargain prices. Granted it would seem a bit far fetched at first glance but from where I stand as a stockholder it's not much more fantasy than all these unsubstantiated rumours, especially against DED's actual fact findings in this and previous articles.
I'm doing a web project that requires that I have a whole bunch of phones for compatibility testing.
So I bought a refurbished Samsung Galaxy S5 for $270, and I can tell you why these phones aren't selling - they look downright cheap compared to my iPhone 6S. Not particularly easy to use, either – I had to look in the manual to learn how to remove the flap that prevents water from getting into the power outlet.
More to the point, the Galaxy S5 looks pretty much identical to the "Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime", which sells at Walmart for $150. It seems like all their phones, even the crummiest, use the "Samsung Galaxy" name, which seems like about the stupidest branding in the world. Go figure.
Good news, though: The web browsers on the iPhone and Samsung behave almost identically. Only difference is that for some reason the Samsung increases body text type size, while leaving header size the same. This ruins my designs, but at least they work ...
Comments
Nice to see Apple finally change the default search engine in iOS to something besides Google. Unfortunately, Mayer went back to her old friends at Google and many of the Yahoo searches are now routed through Google. As all of my devices are Google free, I changed the search engine to DuckDuckGo. But just the change to Yahoo for the default search will still hurt Google's ad revenues.
Google hurt their most capable Android device manufacturer. Without Samsung, Android's marketshare is destined to fall. Xiaomi and Huawei are not even in the same class as Samsung. It means far more potential for Apple and iOS to take additional marketshare from Android.
In the not too distant future, Apple's hardware from 2 generations back will be comparable to the highest end current Android hardware. Apple will have inexpensive hardware running on older technology outperforming the high end Android hardware and for a better price point. It's a bad situation for Google and Android.
Once the A9X goes into an iPad Air, the Android tablet market is in serious trouble. And without Samsung being able to bring out high end hardware running Android spyware, Google's mobile marketshare will tank.
Perhaps an inexpensive Huawei device running on Intel's Sophia SOCs might save the day for Android! That's not going to happen.
Apple's destruction of Samsung's high end handset profits means that Google and Android are in deep trouble. The Chinese won't be able to overcome Apple's dominance no matter how much their government subsidizes their own hardware manufacturers.
Smartphones are unlikely to be a "commodity" for some time to come - at least not to those that would purchase the premium products. It is a mobile computer and for many the most important product in their life. Many will give up things in other areas rather than go with a smartphone that they don't like. This is probably the main understanding that analysts and forum idiots miss.
There are many factors and approaches that Apple are/can take to increase iPhone shipments each year, without taking the "advice" of just reducing the price across the board:
- Unless a long-lasting global recession, the continuing growth of middle class world wide continues to grow the market for the premium smartphone.
- Apple Upgrade program can expand to many markets & also to other products, providing an affordable way to own Apple products. This can lead some to upgrade more frequently
- Trade-ins should increase in Tier 1 markets with upgrade programs, and this allows Apple a path to sell lower priced models in emerging markets as required (refurbished 2/3-year old lower end device can sold below the current lowest price of a new iPhone while still protecting the value of the line).
- Apple is one of perhaps 2-3 companies (and certainly far away the best positioned) with the technical & financial resources to push the boundaries of new h/w features. Cameras, CPU/GPU & local processing, sensors. This keeps new iPhones worth upgrading to (on 2-3 year cycles for some, or every year for others).
- Improve Apple Care to make owning more Apple products easier with coverage (essentially a family plan).
- And of course, as they do, continuing to expand the ecosystem.
Unless ... the phone phone market is contracting. But I don't think it is. Phones are today's #1 must-have gizmos.
I personally think all this doom and gloom talk about Apple is wrong.... and we'll see over the next few months that Apple's success story is continuing.
Agreed. Big fan of DED from his Roughly Drafted days and his spots on Tech Night Owl podcasts to AI articles and occasional podcasts, in fact I now only listen to episodes of TNO and AI podcasts if he's on them.
As for all the supplier hoopla, one commenter suggested that where there is smoke there's fire and I would agree, but it seems he implied the fire could only be indeed a slowdown. However I think the fire could also be intentional misrepresentation as many have suggested, but they all seem to point to the same source, namely traders and other WS shysters. For all we know, in light of Samsung's current self-declared failings, their finance department may have borrowed their marketing's PR team to rev up their FUD machine in a vain attempt to temporarily soften the hit their stock is about to take at earnings call. For all we know it could even be Apple itself strategically maneuvering some orders knowing full well that will arouse WS analysts and bring the stock down so that Tim can finish the stock buyback with one last huge bid at big blowout bargain prices. Granted it would seem a bit far fetched at first glance but from where I stand as a stockholder it's not much more fantasy than all these unsubstantiated rumours, especially against DED's actual fact findings in this and previous articles.
So I bought a refurbished Samsung Galaxy S5 for $270, and I can tell you why these phones aren't selling - they look downright cheap compared to my iPhone 6S. Not particularly easy to use, either – I had to look in the manual to learn how to remove the flap that prevents water from getting into the power outlet.
More to the point, the Galaxy S5 looks pretty much identical to the "Samsung Galaxy Grand Prime", which sells at Walmart for $150. It seems like all their phones, even the crummiest, use the "Samsung Galaxy" name, which seems like about the stupidest branding in the world. Go figure.
Good news, though: The web browsers on the iPhone and Samsung behave almost identically. Only difference is that for some reason the Samsung increases body text type size, while leaving header size the same. This ruins my designs, but at least they work ...