FileMakerFeller

Great news for all the "sovereign citizen" adherents!

mayfly said:

Why on earth would anyone see getting a larger share of a collapsing market as good news?

Because it beats getting a smaller share of a collapsing market?

mayfly said:

That's what happened to the companies making buggy whips a hundred years ago. As more and more companies went bankrupt, the ones remaining got a larger and larger share of the remaining market. You can draw your own conclusions about how much money they make today versus when they had a smaller share of a larger market!

Collapses don't happen overnight. We've had iPhones for more than 15 years at this point, and (while it is shrinking) the PC market remains large enough to support multiple vendors that are (combined) selling in excess of 100 million units per year. There remain multiple use cases where a desktop or laptop machine is better than a smartphone or tablet, unlike your example where the motor vehicle was better at everything than the horse-drawn buggy. And, really, the buggy whip manufacturers were making an accessory to a dominant device; the buggy makers had the option of transitioning to on-device horsepower and those that did it well survived.

There is also a comparison to be made to the floppy disk industry: it can be profitable to serve even a dying niche, but the safe bet is to diversify before the end becomes apparent.

In times of high inflation, people are more likely to seek out the best value - this is why Apple is doing well in the market. The producers that focused on low price above every other metric are discovering the flaws of this approach; having premium models casts a halo on the brand that allows people to justify to themselves that "I couldn't afford the best one, but at least I got a device from a manufacturer that can make a really good phone."

"A higher base of feature phone ownership" isn't necessarily a negative trait, and Apple will be able to avoid the import taxes for devices built within the country. The "low propensity to spend" is a valid point, but I read that as meaning that customers in India are very keen on finding the best value: Apple should have the lead here.

We've seen Apple take a number of steps to deal with affordability issues in China; there's no reason to expect they wouldn't do the same in India, tweaking their approach to suit local conditions.

If the AlphaWise survey's results are truly reflective of the market at large, Apple looks to already have the most desirable products in the smartphone space and is set to repeat its success to date.

StrangeDays said:

Frickin’ lasers!

But where are the sharks?