patsu

bulldogs said:

This post is funny. Vendors can prefer Apple Pay to Samsung Pay, Android Pay and the competition all they want. That doesn't change the reality that by enabling support for Apple Pay, they - in nearly all cases - will automatically support Android Pay, LG Pay, Paypal and everyone else who offers an NFC payments solution. Oh yes: and if they support electronic credit card payments, they already support Samsung Pay whether they want to or not.

Second, this artfully ignores the real story: Android Pay usage has caught up with Apple Pay usage. Despite Apple Pay being introduced nearly a year earlier, receiving much more advertising and media fanfare, and being supported by far more financial institutions, both saw the same transaction rates in physical stores: 8%.

http://www.luxurydaily.com/android-pay-apple-pay-reach-parity-as-mobile-pay-adoption-grows-report/

Before you reply that Android has a larger market share ... these are only stats for America, where iOS and Android market share is nearly equal. (In addition, Android Pay will not launch in its first foreign market, the U.K., until later this month.) So these vendors may prefer supporting Apple Pay, but they will wind up supporting both solutions, and in about equal volumes. 

That article is wrong. By bringing in Softcard and saying it increased Android Pay momentum, they are lumping all the disarrayed payment mechanisms with varying security level together and count them as "Android Pay". So they are counting all the major wallet solutions, including the "no security" card emulation mode, available on Android to-date. Those old wallet mechanisms had more merchant (but less secure) penetration because they started much earlier than Apple Pay, and doesn't require the new tokenization set up.

joe28753 said:

Rayz2016 said:

Yup. I write thrillers and it's damn useful for double-checking locations. 

I also checked the time once by flying over Big Ben, but I suspect their are easier ways to do it. 

Checked the time on Big Ben..? you realize the Flyover images are not live realtime images, right?

Check your Flyover again. The Big Ben clock face is animated and sync to real clock time.

Flyover is not rendering bitmap images. It's 3D graphics.

The nearby London Eye is animated too.

gatorguy said:

patsu said:

Not necessarily. Channel stuffing is illegal in US.

If the demand was based on realworld data, it's not channel stuffing. They are simply reacting to known spikes in demand.

Channel stuffing typically refers to activities many companies practices when they coerce with the distributors to fulfill fake or forced orders. It is very common in Asia (heck, some distributors smuggle products across border and call them parallel import too).

Some Asian distributors also treat the stuffing as their primary business model. They just park the inventory, and then demand so called market development funds from the brand owner periodically.

There is no evidence Apple is stuffing channel since they adjust their inventory openly and proactively.

Channel stuffing would presume they're shipping product for which there's no expectation of payment wouldn't it? On the contrary when Apple ships products ( and most other companies as well) it's either already paid for by the distributor/retailer/end-user or payment arrangements were already made. I've no idea what you mean by "channel stuffing is illegal" when discussing Apple. 

Nope. Channel stuffing does result in payment. That's the whole point for reporting purposes. Most of these shipped goods get returned later. :-D

It is fraud.

if Apple ship to meet typically higher demand in the holidays, that's just forecasting and fulfilling spike in demand to prevent stock out.

the goods in the channel will still be sold to real customers down the road after the spike.

The news we read are all from the supply side. There is no official indication of demand per se.

asdasd said:

Apple probably did stuff the channel. That could mean that they beat guidance last Q and guide low this Q. 

The market will react to the second one. 

Not necessarily. Channel stuffing is illegal in US.

If the demand was based on realworld data, it's not channel stuffing. They are simply reacting to known spikes in demand.

Channel stuffing typically refers to activities many companies practices when they coerce with the distributors to fulfill fake or forced orders. It is very common in Asia (heck, some distributors smuggle products across border and call them parallel import too).

Some Asian distributors also treat the stuffing as their primary business model. They just park the inventory, and then demand so called market development funds from the brand owner periodically.

There is no evidence Apple is stuffing channel since they adjust their inventory openly and proactively.

dewme said:

Pretty much every sector of the economy that benefits either directly or peripherally from high oil prices is seeing similar 20%-ish drops. Companies in these sectors who are looking to upgrade their workforces with the latest technical gadgets are likely to hold off on upgrades and refresh plans until their markets recover. Many iPhone 6 buyers are still under contract and are toting an already damn good device. I'm not even thinking about upgrading until the iPhone 7 at the earliest. Wall Street is so massively schizophrenic at this point. They've worked themselves into a frothing and drooling mess worrying endlessly about turmoil around security, regional unrest, the China financial market stumbling, and the endless rumination from the purveyors of doom and gloom. Whether Apple's next readout is up or down it is nice that they're not flailing around trying to prop up an imaginary falling sky that arrives on a daily basis. They're staying focused on designing and building great products and letting the chips fall where they may.

I forgot to mention that in China, you have to be careful of their channel data, even if they are your own employees.

It is good that Apple is opening many stores in China. It will give them a more accurate demand assessment compared to gathering through purely third party data.

Have a friend whose IPO dream was dashed within a very short time because that dream was based on fake data reported by his Chinese subsidiary for years.

HP had a sophisticated channel data analysis team. They hired PhDs to run the modeling for demand forecast using channel data. When they implemented the same reporting system in China, they found incredibly up-to-date and 100% accurate data submitted by their distributors. Most of the time, real world channel data is spotty and behind time.

On further investigation, they also found the distributors hired a separate team of channel executives just to cook up perfect data. The real team continue to run amok.

It is reassuring to see a large company like Apple adjusting their inventory boldly. I remember in the early days, Jobs often cited their Mac inventory performance during his keynotes. As someone with channel marketing background, I sure miss news on channel management sciences.

The motivation for these channel movements may not be due to just 1 cause. The management usually commit them for multiple valid and beneficial reasons, not necessarily falling demand.